


The Bleeding Swan

by GratiaPlena



Category: Holby City
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alchemy, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Blood, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Non-Consensual Bondage, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Scrub In, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 10:40:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15884397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GratiaPlena/pseuds/GratiaPlena
Summary: This is a Berena AU based on the alchemical folk tale "The Bleeding Swan".Bernie gets injured by a road side IED just as she was wondering if she wants to belong to the heavens or to the earth.She awakens in a dream world in which Serena is under an evil curse that transforms her into the Swan Queen every night.Can Bernie break the spell? Can she take away Serena's pain?Written for the Scrub In challenge.The story is complete. Please heed the additional warning tags. This is a dark story.





	1. Calcination

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Bleeding Swan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15884604) by [ktlsyrtis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktlsyrtis/pseuds/ktlsyrtis). 



> Thank you so much to AlainaEl for being the very best cheerleader! I couldn't have completed the story without your encouragement and help!
> 
> And many thanks to the wonderful Mashers for their encouragement, as well!

A long time ago, in a land far, far away worked a military surgeon called Bernie Wolfe.  
Bernie had made three vows in her life. First, to serve her Queen and country faithfully and with true allegiance, even unto death. Second, to serve her husband, faithfully and obediently, until death do them part. Third, to not let lust get in the way of either of those vows ever again, even if it killed her.

She said her first vow when she was just barely 18 years old. Every fibre of her being wanted to be away from her parental home, away from the people she knew, away from the life she led. The military life promised her adventure, anonymity, physical and mental exhaustion. The words of the oath were nothing more than that to her; passwords to unlock a new life.

Her second vows were said when she was pregnant with a civilian F2’s child. She had met Marcus in the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham and her fellow female students had asserted that he was a definite catch. Having just previously been given an official warning for fraternizing with someone of her own gender, she didn’t want to let the chance to clear her name from stigma pass her by. They did use protection - that one condom she was handed in her kit at Phase 1 finally came in handy. She hadn’t known condoms had expiry dates. But as fate would have it, this one had passed it, and it broke. They were both sensible, got tested for STD’s and the tests came back negative. But the accompanying pregnancy test came back positive. Bernie kept the news to herself for a while. The thought that there was new life growing inside her was magical, but she was convinced she would miscarry; she wasn’t the motherly type. Yet the foetus developed without complications, and so she had to break the news to Marcus. He was seeing someone else at the time, but broke it off. Marriage was their logical next step.  
The wedding vows were nothing more than the right words to make Marcus, herself and future baby Cameron part of honorable society once more.

The third vow was difficult to keep, but expressed sincerely every time again. She would not fraternize with her unit. She would never again confuse love and lust, or even friendship and lust. She would stick to her work, keep her head down and keep her vows. It was easier that way, anyway. She knew the drill. In a few months, all those that were deployed with her, would go back to their own separate lives in Britain, never to work with her again. It didn’t bear thinking about, but perhaps, even sooner, a few of them would return to their hometowns injured. (Or dead.) It was better therefore, on all accounts, not to get too close. Despite the urging of the unit’s psychologist, she took her meals alone, by herself in her shelter, reading through the latest research articles on trauma surgery. 

So Bernie always worked diligently. She was daring in her profession, taking risks in both theatre and in the field. Most of her gambles paid off. Bernie thought it was luck, but her colleagues put it down to talent. She was on duty 24/7, working in stuffy field hospitals under the scorching sun, far away from her family.  
She was admired by her subordinates and loved by those that survived, thanks to her interventions. And she was known to never mix work and pleasure.

 

Then one day she met captain Alex Dawson. Alex was rotated in for an anesthetist that had to go home due to a family situation. At first Bernie had been slightly annoyed by the stubbornness of this new anesthetist, and they had butted heads a few times, until Bernie learnt to appreciate Alex’ professional opinion and learnt to trust her skill. They worked well together. It felt like a beautifully choreographed dance, rather than messy trauma surgery in a field hospital. Bernie no longer felt the hard knot in her stomach, whenever the call came for her to scrub in, because injured troops were on their way in. Instead, she looked forward to seeing Alex again. It made her feel guilty, but she couldn’t wait to see those lively eyes above the surgery mask; to hear Alex’ husky voice reassuring patients or giving commands to colleagues. 

Bernie even began to frequent the mess tent. Taking her meals there, instead of taking them straight to her shelter, as she used to do. Bernie knew it was a slippery slope. She repeated her vows to herself at night. She wouldn’t let it get too far - not this time. Anyway, her unit’s psychologist was delighted with her for attempting to socialise with her team again. That was all she was doing. She deserved a bit of a break from work like everyone else, didn’t she?  
After a week or two, it was a given that when you were sat next to captain Dawson, major Wolfe would ask you to find a different seat at the table. And if there was an empty seat next to the major, it remained empty until the captain showed up.

After a while Bernie didn’t whisper her vows to herself anymore at night. They were empty words, spoken without intention. This was real life. Didn’t she deserve a little happiness?

Bernie learnt that Alex visited the base’s gym in the early morning. A change in Bernie’s schedules was rapidly made. Pretty soon they spent every moment on duty, and every waking off-duty moment together. Their friendship evolved fast, spiralling into something more dangerous. Bernie knew they both felt it, although it was never spoken of. 

Then one night, when the alarm sounded for incoming ballistics, Bernie didn’t run for her own shelter. She ran for Alex’. She knew that Alex’ shelter mate was on guard duty. In the background The Goalkeeper whizzed and fired, but all Bernie could hear was the rushing of her blood, the beating her own heart. And all she felt was Alex, kissing her mouth, her jaw, her throat, further down. 

***

They didn’t speak about it, after. It shouldn’t have happened, and it couldn’t happen again. But they were even more inseparable from then on. When Bernie was asked to accompany a unit to a Forward Operating Base further out west, to set up a basic trauma unit there, no one even raised an eyebrow when she requested that Alex would accompany her.

The unit left just before dusk. Alex was driving their medical vehicle, marked by the internationally recognised red cross symbol, indicating their protection under the Geneva Conventions. In front of them were two humvees, gunmen sticking out of their roofs. Behind them was a long line of transport vehicles and yet more humvees, and overhead two Apache helicopters. Bernie smiled. It was nice to leave the main base for a while. She felt relaxed and looked forward to working on the front lines for a week or two. She was sitting in the passenger seat, alternatively looking at the beautiful, sloping planes of Afghanistan, and the beautiful driver next to her. The sun was setting over hilly landscape. The sky displayed all shades of orange, pink and dusty blue. The shadows of the hills, stones and tufts of vegetation deepened. Bernie sighed. She truly didn’t know if she rather belonged to the earth or to the heavens. 

Then there was a sudden silence. No longer did she hear the deep thumping of the rotors of the Apaches, nor the roaring of the engines of the vehicles around her. Everything was perfectly still.


	2. Dissolution

Bernie becomes aware of the stars overhead. The sky is a deep inky blue now. A voice rings out to her, from very far away. “Stay awake, major, don’t be afraid, we’ve got you.”

She isn’t afraid. What in heaven or on earth is there to be afraid of? Where does the voice even come from? She decides that it doesn’t matter. Anyway, there is that deafening silence once more. 

One of the stars overhead appears to be moving, slowly, gracefully. Bernie tries to focus on it. It seems as though the star has a shape, but she can’t quite recall what shape it should be. Her head feels fuzzy - empty. 

She hears the rustle of feathers, softly at first, then a gentle, constant whooshing. The star splits into three bright, white lights. Bernie closes her eyes for a moment, but curiosity wins out. When she opens her eyes again, she sees that the three lights aren’t stars at all, but three swans in close formation. They swoop down and land next to her. All three crook their heads, looking at Bernie with sorrowful eyes. 

“I’m not afraid,” Bernie tries to say to them, but nothing more than a whisper comes out.

The middle swan nods. She steps forward, regally. Her neck is arched. A thin golden tiara atop her head gleams in the starlight. She has the most intense dark eyes that Bernie has ever seen. The swan bows her head to her, examines Bernie’s hand, sniffs at her golden ring. Her wedding ring. Oh!  
Bernie had forgotten she was married. She wants to laugh, but the eyes of the swan are so full of pain, that the laugh dies in her throat.  
The swan gently pecks at Bernie’s hand, pulling the ring off. She stares at Bernie for a moment, the ring twinkling in her beak. Then she throws her head back and swallows.

All three swans stand silently, looking at Bernie with their sorrowful eyes.  
“Can you tell me your name, love?” A voice pierces through the silence suddenly. Bernie looks up at the stars. She looks back at the swans, who are still regarding her, silently.

“I know who I am,” Bernie says.

The swan queen nods and nudges the swan to her left. From under his wing he produces a sharp, transparent object. It resembles an icicle. The swan queen carefully takes the icicle from him, and - without hesitation - thrusts the sharp object deep into her breast. She cries out - an otherworldly sound of agony escaping her beak. It seems to echo in the vast expanse of starry sky above them, and rolls off the hills surrounding them. The swan queen closes her eyes, and bows her head. The two other swans step forward to remove the icicle. A single drop of red blood rolls from the wound; the deep, dark red is a stark contrast to the bright, white feathers. The swan queen opens her eyes and looks directly at Bernie.

That is the moment Bernie knows: she wants nothing more in life than to help the swan queen, to tend to her wound, to quench the pain in her eyes. 

“I want to serve you,” Bernie says.

“You’re doing fine major. Try not to move,” the disembodied voice echoes in the sky.

She tries to sit up, but something seems to be holding her back. It seems as if she is chained to a big grey slab of stone. With great difficulty she stretches out her arm to the swan queen, as far as the chains allow. She catches the drop of blood in the palm of her hand. It feels hot for a moment and, instinctively, she closes her fist around it. The fluid seems to harden and cool. She opens her hand. She is holding a sparkling ruby.

A bell sounds in the distance. The three swans look up. They rustle their feathers and turn away from Bernie. 

“Take me with you!” Bernie wants to shout, but there is no sound.  
The swan queen looks back. She shakes her head sorrowfully and all three lift off. 

“Take me with you…” whispers Bernie.

“We will, don’t you worry, major. We’ve got you,” the voice booms through the skies.

I’m not worried, thinks Bernie. What in all of heaven and on all of earth is there to be worried about? But now she is suddenly not so sure. Is she not worried? Should she be? She feels the ruby in the palm of her hand. Then, nothing - darkness.

***

 

When Bernie comes to, she no longer feels the ruby in her hand. She asks about it, but her words seem all wrong and disconnected. The sergeant by her side replies sweetly that she needn’t worry, all her belongings are safe. She tries to sit up, but realises she is strapped to a spinal board.  
“Just a precaution, ma’am, you know how it is,” says the sergeant, but she can see the worry in his eyes. She asks what happened. “A roadside IED,” he replies. She doesn’t ask more. She’ll hear all about it later. Although there may not be a later. She is surprised she feels so calm, thinking about that. It feels like a welcome relief, more than anything.  
She wants to inquire after the ruby again, but realises that the meeting with the swan queen was probably an injury induced hallucination. It felt so real - more real perhaps than life itself.  
She lifts up her hand above her face. A perfectly round patch of reddened skin marks the center of her palm, and there is no wedding ring on her finger. Her colleagues must have taken it off - a precaution against swelling limbs. 

“Are you in pain?” the sergeant asks.  
She tries to shake her head, but it is securely strapped to the board. “No,” she says.  
“Good. We’re going to airlift you out of here soon,” says the sergeant. “They are preparing the C-130 now.”  
“Can’t they treat me here?” she asks.  
“Afraid not. Top surgeon is down,” he jokes.  
She nods to acknowledge his attempt to make light of the situation, but she can’t even manage to fake a smile.  
“Hey..at least you are not going out of here wrapped in wood.”  
She presses her lips together, a sheen of tears in her eyes.

A little while later three men show up to wait with her until the plane is ready to be boarded. She knows that members of her own team are preparing the plane for her transport. She wonders who will fly with her? Alex? Oh god...what happened to Alex? She doesn’t dare ask.  
The men speak about everything and nothing to pass the time. Their latest Xbox achievements, gym records, new finds in the American army shop. They make fun of one of the corporals who seems to be in an awful mood.  
“Why the sour face?” asks one of his mates.  
“The base has been on bloody communications shutdown for 8 hours today. I was going to see the play of my daughter through Facetime last night, but…”  
“Uh...Dennis..?” The sergeant nods towards Bernie. “Communications were down for a reason?”  
“Oh, uh...sorry, major, no offense of course,” he says hastily.  
“None taken,” Bernie replies. Because the only thing she takes offense to right now, is that she is somehow still alive. 

 

***

She outranks the medical and transport staff, and commands to be transported to Holby. Not even to St. James, but to Holby City. The horror stories she has heard of Holby City’s response to acute trauma..! She remembers the name of their smug neurosurgeon and requests that he operates on her. As soon as she arrives in Holby City, her husband is by her side, and she is wheeled into theatre that very same day. Spinal surgery and heart surgery. She is so sure that she will not survive, but - against all odds - she does. 

When she wakes up, there is a fruit basket on her bedside table. From Alex. Relief floods through her. Alex is alive, and according to all sources she is better off than Bernie. She was treated for minor injuries at the base and is back at work already. Their life in Afghanistan seems alien now. A happy bubble, that would have burst at one point or another.

She thinks about killing herself, in those long days in hospital. The idea pulls at her soul; death seems a wonderfully calm respite from the chaos in her scarred body and her fragmented life. She shouldn’t have survived the IED. She doesn’t deserve to survive. She is a coward, a cheater, a horrible mother, a… There is no point finishing that line of thought. The surgery should have killed her. She even set the surgeons up against each other on purpose. The procedure was impossible and way beyond the experience of the staff at this hospital. It should have failed. Her body should have given up. And now, true to form, she is even too much of a coward to kill herself.

So she does the second best thing. She cries, all through the long nights in hospital. She cries for her old life, for what could have been if only she was able to stick to her vows, to be courageous, to stop hurting the people she loves the most, to get over herself. She mourns her life.  
Then, she commits _social_ suicide.

She resigns from the army, she resolves to make her marriage work, and she resolves to serve her country by accepting a job in Britain’s most bland town, in the town’s most bland hospital, on the hospital’s most bland ward. She will force herself to live a life in which she feels most ill at ease. The civilian, NHS, married, motherly, and heterosexual life.

*** 

She goes in to sign her contract on a grey afternoon. Marcus drops her off at the hospital. It almost seems that he is afraid that, if he lets her drive by herself, she will steer the car towards Afghanistan, or Sudan, or some other far away war zone. He kisses her cheek. “Good luck, darling,” he says. She smiles reassuringly. The smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

She is early. The coffee in the café is bland. The walls in the staircase are a dull grey. The interior of the CEO’s office is unimaginative.  
His secretary lets her in. “Mr. Hanssen is observing in theatre,” he says. “I’ve paged him - he won’t be long.”

When mr. Hanssen arrives, he asks her to take a seat. He welcomes her to Holby City, and then talks at length about the differences between the NHS and army surgery. She isn’t listening, not really. All she thinks about, is where she has seen his sad, dark eyes before.

“Needless to say, the job is yours, if you choose to take it?” Hanssen says.

“Yes. Yes, of course.” She smiles one of her soulless smiles.

“Great. You have read our contract, I presume?”

“Yes.” She hasn’t. 

“Good.” Hanssen gets up out of his chair. “It is obliged, as you have read, to sign these contracts in archival ink.” 

“Of course.”

Hanssen opens a wooden cabinet next to his desk. “W...O… Wolfe, here it is.” He carries over a dark glass ink bottle. Her name is written on it in curly cursive script. He opens the ink bottle and dips the point of a long, white quill. The ink is a deep red. It reminds Bernie of the ruby she once held. She takes the old fashion pen from Hanssen and signs her name with a careless flourish.

“Welcome aboard, Miss Wolfe.” Hanssen carefully returns the ink to his cabinet and takes the contract from her. “We are glad to have you with us.” He shakes her hand, and Bernie can’t shake the feeling that she has met Mr. Hanssen before.

\----

Every night since the accident, Bernie has been dreaming of the swans. Sometimes she is chained to the slab of stone, sometimes she is not. Sometimes the swan queen pierces herself again with the icicle, and screams her pain into the universe. Sometimes the two helper swans peck at Bernie’s clothes, and she swathes them away. But on most nights the three swans regard her silently, as Bernie sits on the edge of the stone slab looking back at them.She has a deep urge to serve the swan queen, but she doesn’t know where to begin. And so she sits, until the bells ring. Then the swans turn around, and fly away.

She tells Marcus about the dreams. He laughs it off, and then suggests that she looks for a psychiatrist. 

“Do you think I need one?” she asks him honestly.

But he takes her question for the start of one of their many word wars. “Of course not, darling. Just...you know, if you wanted to talk about it with someone?” 

_With you_ , thinks Bernie, but she doesn’t dare step onto that particular communications minefield. Not today.

\---

Every night she dreams of the swans, and every night the bells ring and the swans fly away. She wakes up with a deep desire to heal the swan queen’s wound. She tries to satisfy that need by healing others. She takes on countless of numbing electives, and powers through them with great determination. She even manages to change the way that the Keller ward operates, making everything run more smoothly. She can handle even more electives per day now. Her numbers are staggering and her success rate doesn’t go unnoticed. 

Every now and then Sasha asks her to join him in an unexpected, non-routine surgery. She always refuses. When ED or AAU call for extra hands, all eyes are on her, but she looks down. 

This is the tomb that she has chosen for herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you've enjoyed the story so far! I will try to update every two days or so.
> 
> Next up: Bernie will meet Serena!


	3. Conjunction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Hanssen takes matters into his own hands, and Bernie meets Serena.

A few weeks later Mr. Hanssen waits for Bernie at Pulse’s in the early morning. 

“Ms. Wolfe, a word” he says. He ushers her away from the lifts to a high table close by. He sets the paper coffee cup down and calmly lays a chocolate pastry by its side. Then he looks up. “Ms. Naylor asked for assistance with an incoming RTC. I have taken the liberty to assign you to her team.” 

“But..?” Bernie takes a gulp of air.

“I know you prefer to stick to electives. Mr. Levy has informed me. But I think it is a waste of your talents, and Ms. Naylor needs the assistance.”

“I’d really much rather you asked someone else.”

“Yes.” He seems to consider her request for a moment. “But I assign you.”

“I’d still rather perform my planned electives for today.”

“That is noted, and I appreciate your diligence. Mr. Griffin and mr. Levy will share the workload. I think you will be wise to take my directives. After all, we have a contract, Ms. Swan,” he says.

“Wolfe,” she corrects him.

“Yes, of course,” Mr. Hanssen replies calmly. “My mistake.” But he looks her sharply in the eyes as if it is a challenge, and not a mistake at all. “I take it that you will report to Ms. Naylor to assist with the procedure?”

“Uh...yes, uh...well yes, of course.” 

“Good,” he says. “Good luck, Ms. Wolfe.” He nods. “For you.” He hands her the coffee and pastry, steps into an empty lift, and disappears behind its closing doors.

“Well..,” says Bernie to no-one in particular. She takes a big gulp of coffee and then clicks the button for the lifts. There was nothing for it, but to report to Ms. Naylor.

***

Half-way through a rather standard trauma surgery, Ms. Naylor and Bernie run into trouble. It is difficult to stabilise the liver and the specialist will not arrive for another half hour. With a rush Bernie remembers reading about an atriocaval shunt. For the first time in months, she feels a sliver of excitement. She begins the procedure, despite Ms. Naylor’s urgent advising against it. 

She works in deep concentration and before she knows it, more than an hour has gone by and she is ready to see if the shunt holds. She holds her breath for a few moments and then she breathes a sigh of relief. “Liver is fully excluded. Hemorrhage should be under control.” 

“BP is stabilising,” confirms the anesthetist.

“Good work,” says Ms. Naylor, raising her eyebrows in appreciation.

Now, this is the kind of work that she enjoys! This is what she is good at!  
Suddenly a crackling voice sounds over the intercom. “A word, Ms. Wolfe? Mr. Kennedy can take over from here.” The stern figure of Mr. Hanssen can be seen through the glass. 

“But I haven’t finished,” she replies. 

“Your job here is done, Ms. Wolfe. Please step out of the theatre; I would like to have a word with you.” Mr. Hanssen’s dark eyes stare at her coldly.

When she is scrubbed out, he motions for her to walk with him. “An atriocaval shunt has been performed 31 times in the last 11 years, 6 patients survived. Anything you’d like to say, Ms. Wolfe?”

“Now it is 32 times with 7 survivors. Touch wood?”

“There was no other option? You couldn’t have waited for Mr. Kennedy to arrive?” He grills her, as she tries to explain the rationale behind her actions. But she knows, as well as he, that she chose to do the shunt for her own thrill, at the risk of the life of a patient, and the hospital’s reputation and funding.

“You’ve made your point, Mr. Hanssen” she snaps. “I get it.” 

“I don’t think you do, Ms. Wolfe. If you think that all this _isn’t_ a test of character, you are sorely mistaken. You didn’t choose to operate on this man, I had to make that choice for you. You didn’t choose to do the shunt, you were blindly following your sense of adventure. This, Ms. Wolfe, is not quite heaven and it is not quite earth. You _will_ have to choose one, and _live_ there. Live by its rules. Not quite living, not quite dying - in other words: not quite choosing - will no longer be an option for you. Have I made myself clear?” 

He looks directly at her, and with a shock she knows exactly where she has seen his eyes before. He has the same sharp eyes, and the very same dark expression in them, as one of the swans in her dreams. The swan that usually stands to the left of the swan queen. The swan that presents the icicle to her, so she can pierce herself.

For the second time that day, Mr. Hanssen leaves Bernie standing speechless.

***

She doesn't know if it is the aftermath of the rush in theatre or if her conversation with mr. Hanssen has stripped her defenses a little, but for the first time in months she feels the sunshine on her face and it warms her.

She is standing on the parking lot of Holby City, by one of the back entrances. She holds a cigarette in her hand. Her last cigarette. The symbol of her old independent self. She _has_ chosen this life, hasn’t she? She has _chosen_ to be a good civilian, a good wife, a good mother. That was a choice, right? An independent choice? She lights her lighter and holds it to the tip of the cigarette, but then quickly closes her lighter and slides it back in her pocket.  
Well, anyway. It is _her choice_ to be dependent now. To stick to the rules of the NHS and to stick to the vows of her marriage.

She takes her phone out of her pocket. A message from her husband blinks on the screen. “How is your day?” 

She wants to type “shit”, but it autocorrects to “swan”. Her heart misses a beat.

It is then that the beautiful voice of a gorgeous, and rather angry lady makes her look up. The lady is shouting into her phone, next to a car with an open bonnet. Bernie finds that she instantly knows what is wrong with the car, in the same way as she sometimes just knows that a patient’s liver is bleeding out even before she has seen the first scan, or has made the first cut.

“Engine been growling or whining?” she asks the woman, as she approaches. “Any intermittent smell of burning rubber?”

“Define intermittent,” says the woman. 

“Alternator might be cactus.” 

“Sounds bad…” 

“It is if you want to drive anywhere.”

The woman looks up at Bernie, and Bernie’s heart jumps into her throat. The woman’s eyes are so full of life, and yet so full of pain. She instantly knows where she has seen these eyes before. Yet the lady looks nothing like the swan queen. She is wearing dark, drab clothes and there is not a golden tiara in sight. The movements of the lady before her are surely elegant, but not at all swan like. It is confusing to see to see the same dark eyes, with the same pain swirling inside them, on such a human, beautiful woman. 

The woman seems to have come to her own conclusions about Bernie’s appearance too.  
“Funny, you don’t look like a mechanic,” she says. “Well, apart from the fag.”

“I’m not a mechanic,” replies Bernie, staring at her feet. “I’m a trauma surgeon.”

“Ah, you must be Berenice Wolfe! Serena Campbell!” Serena holds out her hand, and as Bernie takes it, a very familiar desire floods her. She wants to serve this woman and she wants to heal the pain in her eyes.

“I uh...I’d better go,” she says. “Duty calls and all that. Nice to meet you.” 

“And you,” Serena nods. 

Bernie doesn’t know where she is going. All she knows is that she needs to be away from Serena Campbell and she needs fresh air. She walks back into the hospital and then takes the stairs, two steps at a time, further and further up inside the stairwell, until she comes to a heavy metal door. It is stuck a little, but with some effort she can push it open. She takes in lungs full of air on the hospital roof. 

Fuck all rules! Fuck choices, and fuck independence! She lights her cigarette and takes a deep drag. The smokes stings down her throat and she starts coughing. She can’t get rid of the suffocating feeling. Something seems stuck in her throat now. She coughs until there are tears in her eyes, and then throws up. At her feet, on the tar of the roof, lies the ruby.

She stubs out her cigarette and stares at it for a while. Then she gingerly picks it up with a tissue, and puts it into her coat pocket.

“I once had a stone like that.”

“Huh?” Bernie turns around. Behind her, with his back against a low wall, sits Dominic Copeland.

“A stone like that? I had a blue one, once. A sapphire. Sounds mad, maybe, but... well...a snake gave it me.”

“Sounds less mad than you think,” says Bernie as she sits down next to him and stares at the clouds overhead.

They sit in silence for a while. Then Dom speaks again. “I swore I was going to serve the snake, to break the spell he was under. Did you swear that too?” He turns to look at Bernie.

“Something like that.”

“Hm. Well… turns out you need a bit of courage to do so. I always thought I had courage, coming out when I did, overcoming the things I overcame in my life. But it wasn’t enough. I missed my chances. One day, the sapphire just crumbled in my hands. And I haven’t dreamt of the snake since. “

“Small mercies,” says Bernie. 

They stare at the clouds in silence for a while, until Dom’s pager beeps. “Be more courageous than I was,” he says as he gets up. “I’ve regretted not trying harder - every single day.” 

***

That night, she cleans the ruby and puts it under her cushion as she goes to sleep. In her dream the helper swans peck at her clothes again. She lets them pull at her coat and doesn’t swath them away. Instead she keeps her eyes on the swan queen, who is regarding her silently with familiar eyes. When the swans have removed her coat, the swan queen steps forward and the helpers step back. The swan queen walks up to Bernie and turns her head to regard her from up close. She is of equal height and Bernie sees herself reflected in her eye. “I know who you are,” Bernie whispers. And as soon as she has spoken, she loses focus on the swan queen. She tries to adjust her vision and is looking at a beautiful woman instead. The beautiful woman from the parking lot -Serena Campbell. 

“Do you?” Serena asks, her melodic, raspy voice teasing: “Do you know me, really?”

Bernie nods, but is suddenly unsure. The woman before looks exactly like Serena, but has an otherworldliness about her. She is wearing a form fitting, floor length chainmail of small, delicate silver ringlets. Her shoes are leather boots with bronze straps. Over the chainmail she wears a bright white corset, and on top of her dark hair, woven amongst white feathers, sits the golden tiara.  
Serena takes another step forward and looks up into Bernie’s eyes.  
“I want to serve you,” says Bernie, but in reality she wants nothing other than to kiss her. Serena’s hands touch Bernie’s bare forearms. A rush of energy pools in Bernie’s belly and then plunges further down. “I’m not afraid,” she says, her heart hammering in her chest. She feels Serena’s breath on her lips.

Then the bells ring in the distance. Without looking at Bernie again Serena hurriedly steps backwards, falling into the shape of the beautiful, regal swan, as she lifts off with the two other swans. 

“Take me with you!” screams Bernie. 

“Bernie, darling, wake up?” She looks into her husband’s frightened eyes. “Bad dreams again?” 

“Hm.” It takes her a few moments to realise that she is not on a sandy plane in Afghanistan, but in her own bed in Holby, England. Her heart is still beating wildly in her chest. Marcus tries to hug her, she flinches and turns over.  
“I’ll be fine. Let’s try to sleep some more?” 

She hears him lie back down again too. Within a few minutes his breathing evens out.  
Bernie clenches her fist around the ruby under her cushion, the token of Serena’s pain.

“I _will_ serve you,” she thinks to herself. “I will find the courage, somehow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter Bernie will take a few brave decisions. I will try to upload this weekend.


	4. Separation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are a few things in her life that Bernie needs to distance herself from, in order to fully focus on her mission to serve the Swan Queen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you asked to read the original fairy tale. I have decided to post a translation of it as a next chapter. Enjoy it!
> 
> But first Bernie is going to take some tentative brave steps towards being herself.

Chapter 4

When she wakes up the next day, the feeling of Serena’s hands on her forearms is still fresh in her mind. It makes her skin tingle. The ruby feels warm in her hand. She puts it into her coat pocket and goes into work an hour early to speak to Mr. Hanssen. 

She asks him to be scheduled to work at AAU every time they have a shortage of staff - even if these shortages occur on her free days. She is just about to list all of the reasons why her talents are better suited to an acute assessment unit than to Keller, when Hansen holds up his hand.

“Understood, Ms. Wolfe. I’m glad you have finally made a choice to commit. Please, report to AAU immediately. You will find they have been understaffed for a while, and there will be a more permanent position for you there soon. They will be glad for your presence. I will inform mr. Levy.” 

She can’t believe her luck. She doesn’t have much time to get nervous about meeting Serena again, because as soon as she sets foot in AAU, Serena walks up to her with a file.

“Ah Ms. Wolfe. Were you sent to support us?” she asks. And upon Bernie’s nod, she puts the file in Bernie’s hands. “Thank god! Scrub in please. A scaffolding has collapsed, and two builders are on their way up with severe trauma, one abdominal, one peripheral. You will be in theater one. Fletch, Morven, you are with her. Abdominal for you? Fill her in, Mr. Fletcher. Oh and: welcome to the madhouse, Ms. Wolfe.” 

The rest of the day is just one chaotic swirl of surgery, diagnosis, and triage. Bernie doesn’t have time to think, let alone worry about anything other than the women and men, who are in her care.

When she walks to her car that evening, she feels the droplets of rain falling onto her face and onto her hands. She stands still for a moment, not remembering when was the last time that she truly, consciously felt the water on her skin. She laughs. And then politely nods to a porter, who is looking at her curiously. 

She can feel the rain! She can feel something. She craves more. 

***

A few weeks go by. Bernie is asked to join AAU so frequently, they greet her as a stranger on Keller. More often than not, Bernie goes into work with a smile on her face. NHS work isn’t all that boring after all.

She dreams of the swans frequently. In some of the dreams Serena remains in swan form, but mostly she transforms to her beautiful human shape. She walks up to Bernie, touches her lightly, and that is invariably when the bells start to chime. On those mornings Bernie wakes up with her heartbeat pulsing between her thighs, her breathing shallow. 

However much effort she puts into it, it becomes more difficult to separate swan queen Serena from real life Serena in her mind. Serena is a tactile person, handing over files with a reassuring pat on the arm, passing Bernie by in narrow spaces with a hand on the small of her back. Bernie feels her heartbeat speeding up, swallows so as not to moan, and has a hard time focussing on the task at hand for the next few minutes. She sternly tells herself to get a grip, but there is no denying that real life Serena is every bit as alluring as the swan queen in her dreams. 

When a patient arrives on AAU with a mauled arm after an encounter with an aggressive dog, Bernie pages Serena to join her in theater. She has seen Serena at work managing the AAU ward, but she hasn’t yet had the opportunity to see her perform surgery. Whereas Bernie is all about the practicality of a surgery - the nuts and bolts, sometimes literally - Serena operates on the hand beautifully. How can something so bloody and messy as surgery on a mauled arm be elegant? But there is no other way to classify Serena’s work. She is still every bit as in control of the theater, and takes no back talk, not even Bernie’s. Yet at the same time she is so delicate in repairing the blood vessels in the man’s arm, it is a wonder to behold. No, it is more; it is sexy.

After scrubbing out, Serena hastily returning to an ongoing surgery she was called away from, Bernie goes to the roof. She puts her hands in her pockets and just stares at the clouds for a while. In her one pocket is the stone - warm against her skin.  
In the other pocket is her phone. Bernie sighs.

She sits down against one of the low walls and takes her phone out. There is a new text from Marcus. Will she join him for a work do later that week? She doesn’t answer, but scrolls down through the messages. One from Serena, sent last week, asking her to join them at Albie’s after a long shift. Bernie smiles. She scrolls further down. There are about ten unanswered ones from Alex, asking her how she is healing, asking her to join her for a skype call, will she tell her that she is alive at least, etcetera. Bernie scrolls through them, sighs. It isn’t fair to keep Alex hanging like this. Their intense relationship could only exist in the happy bubble of the deployment - far away from real life and responsibilities. She taps a quick message, thanking Alex for their time together, but informing her that she has moved on. That it is best for both of them to forget it ever happened, at all.  
When she wants to click send, her vision begins to blur. Annoyingly the tears start to fall. Bernie doesn’t even really know what she is sad about. She wipes her eyes and clicks send. Then she resolutely deletes all messages and Alex’ contact information.

“Hi?” 

Bernie looks up. Dom is standing on the roof in his purple Keller scrubs. “Rough day?” he asks.

“Hm,” she nods, realising that the tears are still rolling down her cheeks.

“Want to talk about it?” 

“Not really,” she smiles at him through the tears. “I’ll be okay.”

“You will be,” he confirms, as he sits down next to her. 

Together, they stare at the clouds for a while.

“Did you...ah...did you know your snake?” asks Bernie after a while. “The snake in our dreams, the one that gave you the sapphire? Did you know them in real life?”

“Oh yeah,” replies Dom. “Not in snake form of course. He was beautiful boy, with the most exquisite dark curls, and dark forlorn eyes.” He sighs. “Very straight of course. And I didn’t dare...well, you know…” 

“Hm.”

A long silence stretches between them.

“So,” Dom asks, “so, do you know your snake?”

“A swan,” says Bernie.

“Ah. Your swan, do you know her?”

Bernie looks up with wide eyes. “How...eh…”

“How do I know it’s a her?” Dom shrugs. “Takes one to know one?”

Bernie laughs a bitter, dry laugh. “Wish my husband was that observant…”

“Oh dear.” Dom looks at Bernie with a frown. “So Marcus...doesn’t..?”

“He doesn’t have a clue.” She stares into the distance. “But I don’t want you to think that I don’t take my commitment to my family seriously.” 

“I’m not here to judge you!” Dom says indignantly. “You love who you love, there is no shame in that.”

“I’m not ashamed of who I am,” Bernie replies. And it is only while she is saying it, she realises that is true. “I’m not ashamed of who I am, but of the hurt I’ve caused.”

“The longer you deny yourself the freedom of living your truth openly, the more hurt you will cause.” 

“That’s not quite the “it gets better” speech I was hoping for…”

“Sorry,” says Dom. “It will get better, but you will have to take that first step. Which is easier said than done, I know. It takes a lot of courage.” 

“Yeah, I know. I’ve never been brave enough.” 

“Do you feel brave enough now?”

A gust of wind ruffles their hair and scrubs. Bernie marvels at the feeling of the air brushing her skin. She can’t remember the last time she consciously felt that. She nods. “I think I might be.” 

 

*** 

That evening she walks into Albie’s for a quick drink before going home. “Excuse me?” she says to the barwoman. “A whiskey, please, a double.”

“A bad day?” Bernie turns around. Serena has walked up to the bar. Her eyes are swirling with the familiar mingling of sadness and liveliness. 

“Challenging.” Bernie nods. “The worst is yet to come. Thank you,” she accepts the glass from the barkeeper. “Dutch courage!” She lifts her glass to Serena.

“Maybe I should buy you another?”

But getting drunk and opening up to the very person who - unbeknownst to herself - is at the center of her current hardship, seems like an extraordinarily bad plan. Bernie gulps down her drink. It stings at the back of her throat. She coughs a little. “Thanks. But there are things I have to do at home.” She sighs. “See you tonight.”

Serena lifts an eyebrow. “Are you coming back here, after?”

“Oh god, no. Tomorrow, I mean. See you tomorrow. I don’t know where my head is. Best get this over with... Wish me luck?”

Serena shrugs. “Good luck, Bernie.”

They stare at each other for long moments, before Bernie manages to tear her eyes away. 

Right. Closets to exit, marriage vows to undo, spells to break. She needs all the luck she can get. 

***

Coming out to Marcus was every bit as nightmarish as she had imagined it. There was disbelief, denial, anger - even hostility at times. Finally, after hours of talking, they had come to a sort of armistice. No rash decisions were going to be made, the children would not be involved yet; they would first take a night’s rest and see how their marriage looked in the light of day.

Exhausted, Bernie falls asleep almost immediately, and when she finds herself lying down on the grey stone slab in the middle of the Afghan hills, it seems to her that she can hear a faint echo of an explosion. The air seems to hold that aftertingle of brute fire and sound.  
She checks to see if she is bound to the grey stone this time, but no, the chains are dangling off the sides. She quickly gets up.  
Behind her, she hears the familiar swooshing of birds’ wings and soon the three swans are standing before her. The swan in whose eyes she recognises Mr. Hanssen gives her a reassuring nod, as does the other helper swan. They both walk up to her to pull at her coat. Bernie doesn’t swat them away. She helps, opening the coat buttons, all the while keeping her gaze steadily on the swan queen. Serena changes into human form at the same time as Bernie’s coat falls to the ground. Serena’s eyes seem to widen for a moment. Bernie looks down and discovers to her great shock that she had not been wearing anything underneath her coat. She looks down to the ground. She can feel Serena’s gaze on her, then hears her footsteps and sees the leather boots halt a few centimeters before her own bare toes. A finger under her chin makes her look up into Serena’s eyes. There is no mockery there, just endless sadness, liveliness, compassion, and lust. Bernie takes a sharp breath.

“What are you hiding from me?” inquires Serena.

“Noth...nothing,” says Bernie. 

“What is that behind your back?” asks Serena again.

“Uh…” It is only now that Bernie realises she is holding the ruby in her hands.

Serena takes a step forward. The chainmail feels cold against Bernie’s shins and she feels the silk of the corset press against her breasts. Then Serena’s hands travel from her shoulders down to her hands, reaching behind her back, cupping her hands around Bernie’s. Bernie immediately lets the ruby drop into Serena’s hands. Serena steps back and Bernie wants to scream “Take me with you!” But it seems wholly inappropriate, given the fact that Serena is still standing so close that Bernie can feel her breath on her skin. 

Serena holds up the ruby in the starlight. It seems to give off a faint red glow. She studies the it for a moment. Then looks deep into Bernie’s eyes.

“You’ve kept it?” 

Bernie nods. 

Serena smiles broadly at her. It makes Bernie’s knees wobble. 

“Good. Hold out your hand,” says Serena. Bernie does. She can feel something heavy resting on her palm. It is colder and larger than the ruby.

They stand like that for long moments, the cold object between their warm, linked hands. Then the bells chime. For a moment longer Serena holds Bernie’s hand. Then she steps back. “Be brave, Bernie,” she says as she changes back into the swan and flies off with her companions.

Bernie stands on the Afgan sand, naked and alone. “I was brave,” she says. It echoes amongst the hills. “I am. I am ...ah… brave?” She sits down on the grey stone slab with a sigh. She opens her hand. The heavy object turns out to be a small, decorated iron box. Bernie opens the lid, and is relieved to find the ruby inside it. 

I will be braver, she thinks to herself.


	5. The Bleeding Swan - Original folk tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the original folk tale that my story is (loosely) based upon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do skip this chapter if you don't want any spoilers, or if you are not into Berena-less folk tales. The next chapter will be a contination of the story again.
> 
> \---  
> I have translated this story from Dutch, so I apologise for my mistakes. I hope the beauty of the original story shines through, regardless.  
> All sources say that it is originally a story from Sweden, but I haven't been able to find out more about that. 
> 
> It is the most beautiful folk tale I know, and I have often told this story to groups of open mouthed kids or adults. It is a little dark at times, but that contrast makes the light of the story shine even brighter. Enjoy!

His name was Botvid, and he was fifteen years old. He was the son of a knight. He was poor; he no longer had parents, a castle or a sword. All he had was his noble aim to serve the most high and protect the most weak. But Botvid didn’t yet know that the highest is sometimes the weakest too. 

On the day before Christmas, Botvid walked through a birch forest. The sun had just set. In the West, the sky was like a pastel red sea, on which golden ships sailed to far away lands. Both the dew, frozen around the birch trees, and the snow caught the light of the sky. Botvid stood still in wonder. He didn’t know what was more beautiful: the heavens or the earth.

Then he heard a strong rushing sound above his head; three white swans came flying from the East. The boy extended both of his arms towards them. “Take me with you!” he called “Oh, take me with you!”

The birds landed close to him. The swan that had flown before the others, was bigger and whiter than the others. The swan bowed his head, so Botvid could look into his eyes. In those eyes Botvid read an incredible sadness, and he felt a deep love for this majestic bird. Blood dripped down from the breast of the swan, and one of the drops fell into Botvid’s open hand. The drop burnt like fire, but at the same moment, it changed into a glittering ruby. 

The swan stretched his head upwards and cried a long, and terribly sad cry. He flew away with swooshing wings, closely followed by the other swans. The boy looked at them, until they disappeared into the dusk. 

Botvid continued his journey, and it was dark by the time he knocked on the door of a castle. It was a grey and lonely castle at the edge of the forest. An old knight was living here, all by himself, with his dogs and his falcons. The knight invited him in with admirable hospitality. He appreciated that the boy was respectful and kind, and he enjoyed his company on Christmas Eve. “Where are you from boy, and what is the aim of your quest?” he asked. 

Botvid told him, that he had seen a beautiful white swan, and that he had developed a great love for this swan. He showed his host the shimmering ruby. The old man held the stone in his hand and let it twinkle in the light of the fire. 

“This is a drop of blood from the prince who had a terrible spell cast over him,” he said. “Long ago, when I was as old as you are now, I met him too. Every year, on Christmas Eve, he comes back here, hoping that the light will one day shine for him, and that his spell will be broken. I possessed one of these stones too, once.”

“A cursed prince?” asked Botvid, as he felt adventure touch his cheeks. “I want to save him from his curse! I want to break the spell!I want to set him free!”

“That was my wish too,” said the old knight. “But I didn’t accomplish it, and all the others that tried before me, couldn’t complete their quest either.”

“Why not?” asked Botvid, surprised. 

“I was afraid,” said the knight. “Remember this boy: so many people fail because of their fear.”

Botvid was even more surprised now, because the knight looked as though he had never known any fear in his life. “I will remember,” he said.

The next morning, on the First Day of Christmas, Botvid continued his search for the cursed prince, after he had attended the early mass at a nearby church, together with the knight.  
He asked everyone he met: “Did you see where the three white swans went?” Nobody had seen the three swans; nobody had even heard of them before. 

When darkness fell, he arrived at the cave of a hermit. He asked if he could sleep there for the night, and if he could warm himself at the fire. The hermit enjoyed the company of the good natured boy, and he asked: “Where do you come from, and what is the aim of your quest?”

Botvid showed him the drop of blood that had turned into stone, and he told the hermit about the bleeding swan, with his sad eyes and his cry full of fear. The old man held the ruby in his hands, and suddenly a few tears rolled down his cheeks. “My ruby sparkled just like this one,” he said. “I, too, tried to break the prince’s spell, but I failed. Just like all others who tried before me.”

“Why did you fail?” asked Botvid.

“Because I doubted,” said the hermit. “Remember this, boy: a person can meet their demise by doubting too much.”

“I will remember it,” said Botvid, without really understanding what the hermit had said. 

After he spent the night in the hermit’s cave, Botvid continued to look for the prince, who had been transformed into a swan. He asked everyone about the three white birds, but nobody could tell him anything about them. Around dusk, he arrived at a monastery. He asked the monks for a place to sleep for the night. After he was allowed to participate in the Christmas meal of salted fish and rice porridge, the abbot arrived. 

The abbot enjoyed the sweet nature of the boy, and he asked: “Where do you come from and what is the aim of your quest?” The boy answered all his questions, showed him the blood red stone, and told him about meeting the three swans on Christmas Eve. The old abbot held the ruby in his hands and held it up to the light. “This stone,” he said, “always this same stone! I once tried to break the spell myself, but I failed, just like all the others before me.”

“Why did you fail?” asked Botvid.

“Because I couldn’t forget myself,” said the abbot. “Boy, remember this: people often fail because they can’t forget themselves.”

Botvid looked at him with wide eyes. The abbot didn’t look like a person that thought about himself a lot. “I will remember,” he said. 

The next day he left to look for the bleeding swan again. He roamed around for a long time. Sometimes he was so tired that he couldn’t go on, and he was often about to lose courage. But each time he looked at the blood red ruby, and his tiredness and despair disappeared as if by magic. Then he remembered the eyes of the swan, that seemed to beg him for help, and the otherworldly cry of pain, and it seemed to him like nothing in the world could stop him from breaking the spell. “How beautiful will he be as a human being, knowing how beautiful he is as a swan?” he said to himself.

One evening, Botvid ended up in a forest of black pine trees, that were taller than any other pine tree he had ever seen. De wind rustled through the trees, speaking of fear and melancholy. Deep inside the wood glimmered the walls of a white castle, and Botvid understood, that he had reached the home of the white swan. 

A voice seemed to whisper the three golden words to him, that the three old men had instilled in him:  
Don’t be afraid!  
Don’t doubt!  
Forget yourself!

Botvid repeated them softly and held the ruby in his hand, to gain strength from its sheen. Then he suddenly noticed that he could understand the language of the birds, while he was holding the ruby. Two blackbirds were each sitting in the top of a pine tree. One of them said: 

“Today is the day on which the prince will transform. Today he will be back to his human form for just one hour.”

“Today should be the day that his saviour is arriving,” sang the other. “This is the day that the spell can be broken; the curse can be lifted.”

“Oh look, there is his saviour now,” exulted the first blackbird. “I see a boy with a radiant forehead. He is walking towards us through the undergrowth.”

“But he is small and young,” said the other. “How will he accomplish, what no one else has accomplished before him?”

Then, Botvid raised his hand to speak an oath, and in between his fingers the ruby was glittering. “I shall accomplish it,” he called out. “I’m certain, that I am the chosen one!”

Both black birds got frightened, and they disappeared between the trees. Botvid walked on through the undergrowth,and at long last he stood at the gate of the castle. Three wild swans had landed on the steps, and at the exact moment that the boy saw them, they threw off their feathers,and three young men were standing before him.

One of them was more slender and more beautiful than the others, and when Botvid walked towards him, he recognised his eyes as the eyes of the bleeding swan. The prince, the prince! thought Botvid, and he fell onto his knees out of reverence, because he felt that he was standing before the most high, before the one who had captured his heart, to the one he wished to serve. But the prince held both his hands out to him. “Be welcome!” he said. “I can tell from the look in your eye, that you are here to save me. Many have tried before you, and none were successful. That is all I am allowed to tell you.”

Botvid had never heard a voice before that had such a soft, sad sound, and he was willing to do anything to break the spell. “I would offer my heart’s blood for this cause,” he said. His eyes were radiant. 

The prince smiled sadly. His two companions handed Botvid a sword and shield and they dressed him in armour and helmet. Botvid felt his powers multiply, and waited for the monster that would storm at him, so he could overpower it.

But there was no monster, there was no dragon. Instead, Botvid was slowly enveloped by a mysterious dusk. The prince and his companions disappeared.The white castle seemed to have been swallowed up by the earth,and then the dusk turned to darkness. Botvid stood all by himself in the silent night. No single ray of light penetrated the darkness. 

He didn’t know how long he had been standing there, when he heard footsteps behind him. Something was sneaking towards him, without any sound. Now it was next to him, and now in front of him. Botvid hewed his sword left and right, but didn’t hit anything. He felt how the air around him was filled with indescribable evil. It tried to gang up on him. He pointed his sword at it, but there was nothing that could be slain. The earth trembled, the air quivered. He felt something penetrating his armour, and touching him with cold, shapeless hands. A cold sweat took hold of his entire body. He shivered like an aspen leaf. The sword slipped out of his powerless hands, and, with a cry of horror, Botvid fell to the ground, overpowered by fear. 

The night turned to dusk, the dusk turned to day. Botvid saw that the prince had fallen onto the steps, as if he was no longer able to stand. He now saw that the most high was also the most weak, the very person he had always wished to serve. The fear fell away from him in an instant. He wanted to bow to the prince, but not a moment later the prince and his companions had changed back into the three white swans, who flew up into the air with a lamenting cry. 

“Oh dear, oh dear!” said the two blackbirds. “The hour to save the prince has passed by!” 

But Botvid held up his ruby, and saw it glisten in the blood red depth of the sun. “The hour shall come again,” he said. And he went out into the world to learn how to overcome fear.

A year later, he was standing at the gate of the castle again. Both of the blackbirds sang about the breaking of the spell, and the prince and his companions threw the feathers off of themselves. 

“Welcome!” said prince. “Twice before two came back to save me.That is all I am allowed to tell you.”

His sad voice resonated even more deeply within the soul of the boy than it had before.  
“Nothing is too much for me,” he said. And his eyes radiated more warmth than ever before, but the prince’s smile was even more sad than before.

The companions walked up to Botvid and dressed him in armour and a helmet,and handed him a shield and a sword. 

 

The day turned to dusk, the dusk turned to night, all the evil powers of fear threw themselves at Botvid. They made the earth tremble, the air quiver, they wrapped around his neck with shapeless hands, twice as horrible as before. Botvid didn’t even try to use his sword. He calmly stood in the darkness of night, and through the horror of all his fear, he saw the sad eyes of the prince, whose sadness he wanted to change into happiness. 

Then, the ghosts of fear slowly retreated, and the daylight returned. Botvid was exuberant, because he thought the spell was broken and the prince was free. But when the companions took his armour off, and he wanted to approach the prince, to bow to him, Botvid noticed that the face of the prince had changed. There was no trace left of the noble highness and the gentle sadness. The eyes of the prince were hard and cold. His mouth was a wry, sneering grimace and angry words spilled from his lips. Botvid stood still before him, full of consternation. Had the prince not been longing to be freed? Had he, Botvid, not withstood the test?

But before the eyes of the boy, the face of the prince changed even more. He looked like a despicable animal now, and Botvid felt his entire being stiffen with grief. “No, no,” he said, filled with doubt. He hid his face in his hands. “You are not who I thought you were! Why did I ever try to save you?” And again he stared at the awful face of the prince, and shivered in disgust.  
Slowly the prince’s face changed back, and once more Botvid looked into his sad, beautiful eyes. Botvid understood that he had been overpowered a second time. Even before he could ask the prince for forgiveness, the three white swans cried out from sadness and disappeared behind the tops of the pine trees.  
Botvid looked at the glittering ruby through his tears, and vowed to overcome the doubts next time.

A year later, he returned. And all was as before. The prince reached out for him and welcomed him. “Before you, only one returned three times to save me,” he said. “But he failed. That is all I am allowed to tell you.”

Botvid, who thought nothing could be worse than what he already had withstood, laughed triumphantly. “There is nothing, that can’t be overcome!” he said. 

Again, he was dressed in full armour, and the powers of fear attacked him again in the dark.They were three times as strong, but he overcame. Then the face of the prince distorted,twice as disgustingly as before, but through the despicable face, Botvid saw the true spirit of the prince, and through the angry words, Botvid heard the true voice of the prince. He didn’t let a single doubt trouble his mind, and so the prince got his own beautiful appearance back. 

Botvid’s heart jumped for joy. The tests are done, he thought. The prince is free, and I will stay with him forever, as his friend and servant! But before he had time to bend his knees in reverence and say an oath of eternal faithfulness, the prince had walked up to him.  
“Now you will die,” he said. And handed him a sword. Botvid backed away and his eyes were big with worry. “Die?” he stuttered. “Now? Just as my real life as your friend and servant is about to begin? No, no!”

“You promised me your heart’s blood,” said the prince, while he walked up to Botvid again. “Do you no longer wish to?”

“Not my life,” begged Botvid. Ï’m so young. My life is my only possession” And all of life beckoned him: love, heroic acts, honour. “Not my life, not my life!” And loudly he proclaimed, full of selfishness: “'Giving one's heart's blood? Those are just words one speaks, but never acts upon!”

The weapon fell from the hands of the prince, and in the shape of a white swan, he flew above the treetops with his two companions. Out of his breast rained ruby red droplets and the cry of the bird was filled with such pain, that Botvid couldn’t bear to listen. He threw himself down on the ground and sobbed. 

“Oh dear, oh dear!” shouted the blackbirds. “He failed three times. He won’t return.”

But when Botvid rose again, he clamped his fist around the ruby, and he was ready to go out into the world to learn how to forget himself. 

 

Many years went by, before Botvid felt he was ready to return to the pine forest. The blackbirds still remembered him. “Look at that, look at that,” they sang. “The saviour is arriving. He overcame fear, and he overcame doubt. Now he has returned to overcome himself!” But Botvid bowed before them, humbly, and didn’t say a word. 

When the prince approached him with outstretched hands, Botvid fell on one knee, and kissed the prince’s hands. “Please try me again, lord,” he said. 

But the prince helped him upright and looked at him. “No one,no one returned for fourth time.Why did you return?” 

“My lord,” replied Botvid, “how can I ever forget you? What does my life mean, if I can’t serve you?”

And so he overcame the first test,and the second, and neither fear nor doubt made his courage and resolution waver. And finally the prince drew the clean sword and handed it to him. “Now you must die,” he said. Botvid took the weapon from his hands. “Now I can die!” He looked up to the one that he wanted to save, and to the two that would be saved along with him, and to the swan skins that would no longer serve as restraints and prisons. 

Then he held the sword up, plunged it deep into his chest, and fell down on the earth. A ruby red stream flowed on the grass. 

But the prince crouched down, took the weapon from wound, and lay his hand on it. The wound closed. 

Botvid got up, and was, once more, the boy with the smooth forehead and the eyes that were always wakeful. The prince held out both hands to him. “I thank you, my saviour,” he said.

And the blackbirds sang of faithfulness that knows no boundaries, and of love that conquers all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading the story that I remixed into a modern day Berena story. 
> 
> The next chapter will be the Berena story again. Bernie and Serena will cosign one of Hanssen's mysterious contracts, and Bernie will meet Jason!


	6. Cibation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanssen gets the ladies to cosign another one of his contracts and Bernie meets Jason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to the regular story:

Now that Bernie is a free woman, she feels bold. She flirts unashamedly with any pretty lady in her vicinity. Most women don’t even notice, some do and shy away a little. Yet Bernie thinks she gets as good as she gives from Serena.

When she is asked to work in AAU again, for example, Serena herself suggests arm wrestling to determine who is going to get to operate on a particularly interesting case. Bernie lets Serena win. Well, truth be told, she goes a bit weak in the knees from the intense staring, the hand holding, and the huffing and puffing that Serena is doing.   
Serena is particularly smug after the win, and so very sexy. Bernie can’t bring herself to feel bad about losing.

She ends up scrubbing in alongside Serena anyway, and even taking care of most of the procedure. The entire shift feels light, fun and flirty. 

The day ends on a downer, however. Due to an accidental information leak, Serena is suspended with immediate effect. Bernie walks with her to the parking lot.   
“No resignation demand?” 

“No,” says Serena. “Not really Hanssen’s style. Good job or I might have walked.”

“You don’t mean that!” 

“Don’t I?”

“Well…,” says Bernie. “Look at it as an opportunity! It sounds like a perfect excuse for a gin to me!”

Serena seems to consider the offer for a moment. “Ah.. no, not tonight.”

“I clock off in ten?” Bernie says, hopeful.

“Thanks, I’ll pass.”

“Okay, ...okay! I give up!” 

Serena smiles shyly and sadly, and walks out of the hospital. Bernie stands in the hallway, looking at Serena disappear.

“The notion of giving up should be taken out of your arsenal.” 

Bernie nearly jumps five feet into the air. “Could you wear louder shoes, please!” she barks at Mr. Hanssen.

“It is merely a helpful hint, Ms. Wolfe. Giving up, especially without really trying, isn’t going to get any spells broken.” He tips his imaginary hat. “Good evening.” He, too, disappears into the darkness of the night. 

***

Ric and Bernie are asked to alternate leading AAU in Serena’s absence. The team seems to take to Bernie’s leadership well, and before long, Ric asks Hanssen if he can be excused from AAU duty. He is trying to get funding for an innovation project on Keller, steal it away from Guy Self; he wants to fully commit to it.  
Bernie happily takes the reigns of AAU full time. The team works like a well oiled machine, and trauma surgery in the luxury of a fully equipped hospital excites her. The only thing that is missing, is Serena’s presence. And not just because the paperwork in the office is about to reach the ceiling.

***

Bernie dreams of the swans almost nightly. But all that the swans do lately, is just stand there, at a distance, looking at her. Bernie gets up from the stone slab, waiting for the swans to remove her coat, waiting for the swan queen to approach her. But they don’t. They just stare at her, and she looks back at them. Then the bells chime, and they fly away.

After a few weeks of this, Bernie has finally had enough. 

“What?” she asks the swans. “Just here to gawk at me, are you?” The swans stare at her.

She opens her coat buttons and lets the coat drop on the sand.   
“Have a good look then,” she tells them, standing naked before them. “Here I am - no hiding, just me!”

The swans stare at her. The swan queen dips her head.

“What do you want from me? What the hell more do you want from me?!”

The bells start chiming and, without looking back at her, the three swans fly away into the dark Afghan sky. 

Desolate, Bernie sits down on the grey stone slab. She kicks against the chains that hang off the stone. Their metallic chinking blends in with the bells that continue to chime. Bernie kicks against the chains again, and again and again.

The chinking echoes all around her and the bells don’t stop chiming. With a shock Bernie realises that it is her alarm. 

***

That morning, she drives by the gas station close to the hospital. They sell tiny, foul-tasting, but very potent espressos at their service shop. She buys a latte at Pulse’s and pours the espresso in, hoping it will wake her up enough to complete another AAU shift. 

She plans on drinking her coffee in her office - a few minutes respite before the chaos of another day on the AAU ward. But her plan is thwarted in the most delightful way. She opens the door to find that Serena has returned from her suspension!

“So sorry,” says Bernie, setting down her cup on the other desk. “Housekeeping never was my strong point…”

Serena is sorting through an enormous pile of paperwork on her desk. “Yeah, well, I hope you kept my ward in better nick!”

“As a well oiled machine!” Bernie recalls the conversation she had with Hanssen a while ago. He wanted her to stay on in AAU for a while, so that Serena’s return is a little easier for her. Bernie had agreed gladly. “As it is so busy,” she conveys the message to Serena, “I thought it might be useful to stick around? Do a proper hand over?”

“Fine with me! I need all the friends I can get around right now.” Serena rearranges a pile of papers into a neat stack.

“At least, being off for a while must have given you the chance to relax?”

“Yeah, no, not exactly…” Serena grimaces. “I spent my time at home enjoying a diet of quiz shows and historical documentaries, thanks to a certain nephew.”

“You and Jason rubbing each other up the wrong way?”

“Ehm, it’s safe to say the honeymoon is over! Catch!” Serena found a perfectly good, green apple underneath the paperwork. 

Bernie catches the apple. “Oh...uh...you can keep it.” She sheepishly hands the apple back to Serena, who raises an eyebrow. “I don’t really like sour apples. I like sweeter, red ones really, so...enjoy!”

“Thanks,” says Serena. She puts the apple into her handbag, then digs out a bright red apple and holds it up for Bernie. “For you then, to make it an equal trade.”

Bernie gingerly takes the apple from Serena. It’s a deep red. It reminds Bernie of the ruby in her pocket. “Thanks,” she says, then bites into it. “Sweet!” 

Serena smiles at her, then redistributes some more paperwork. “You could perhaps assist me?” 

“Can’t!” says Bernie, with a mouthful of apple. “Abfolutely can’t. Vewwy buffy. Paffients!” She points to the ward. 

Serena rolls her eyes at her, as Bernie hastily exits the office. 

***

The shift is a bit of a struggle. The extra shot of espresso doesn’t seem to have helped much, and for some reason the day is a constant slew of miscommunications between Serena and herself. Serena seems hellbent on challenging Bernie on every little thing. She snaps at Bernie constantly and seems, over all, deeply unhappy to be working on AAU again, perhaps even unhappy to work with Bernie again. Bernie tries to address it, tries to let Serena know that she always has her back, only to get snapped at again.

I give up, thinks Bernie. Perhaps Serena simply needs some time to find her feet again. Before long she’ll be back to the Serena she knows and - well - really likes quite a lot.

When Bernie is called up to Hanssen’s office, right as she is changing out of her scrubs and back into her civvies, she thinks nothing of it. He probably wants to discuss some legal details regarding one of AAU’s patients. She is tired to the bone, climbing the steps up to the management floor. Her back aches, she is sure these new boots are giving her a blister, and the metal box in which she keeps the ruby is digging into her leg. Her jeans are just a little too tight on her, and she could barely fit the stone in the pocket. She grumbles to herself as she walks the corridor to mr. Hanssen’s office. She hopes he is as succinct as usual. She can’t wait to go home and have a shower.

The scene in the Mr. Hanssen’s office is an unexpected one. She opens the door to see a a stern looking mr. Hanssen and a nervously pacing Serena waiting for her. “What’s this about?” she asks.

“Your guess is as good as mine, Ms. Wolfe,” replies Hanssen.

“I’d like to retract my resignation,” says Serena.

“And I’m happy to accept your retraction,” replies Mr. Hanssen.

Cold ice water runs through Bernie’s veins. Serena was going to resign. She only just returned to Holby, and she was going to walk right back out again!

“There’s a caveat…” says Serena. “Much as it pains me to admit it, the situation at home, with Jason and his needs, has been somewhat overwhelming. Things clearly can’t go on as they are. Now, Ms. Wolfe’s presence today has not been without its uses. And apart from nominal rank, there is no denying that we are equals.” Serena pauses a moment and looks up to see if Bernie agrees. “So, I have a rather novel suggestion…” 

“Go on,” says Mr. Hanssen.

“I retract my resignation, if Ms. Wolfe will stay in AAU with me for the foreseeable future? Not as a borrowed pair of hands from Keller, but as an AAU consultant and co-lead?”

Mr. Hanssen raises an eyebrow and looks at Bernie. “Ms. Wolfe?” 

“Uh...This is a bit of a surprise. We seemed to constantly butt heads today?” 

“Sorry, I was raised an only child. I don’t share my favourite toys easily.” Serena smiles wryly.

“Hah, you don’t say. Well,” Bernie addresses mr. Hanssen, “I would love to work in AAU full time, and if I promise to not break AAU, I think Ms. Campbell and I will work well together. That is...if you share nicely? If you will have my back too?”

Serena smiles and nods. “Equals?” she asks, holding out her hand.

“Equals,” says Bernie, and takes Serena’s hand. A jolt of energy runs through Bernie’s body, from their linked hands, to the top of her crown, to the depths of her belly. She only realises after a few moments that she is holding Serena’s hand too long, and lets it slide out of hers. 

Mr. Hanssen coughs. “Very well,” he says, as he walks around his desk and pulls out the chair, motioning for Bernie to sit down. He then opens his cabinet. “W...O...Wolfe, here we are.” He carries over the bottle of ink and a quill, and places a document before Bernie. “Sign here, and here and your initials on each page, please.” Bernie dips the quill in the red ink and signs with a confident flourish. Mr. Hanssen nods reassuringly.

“Ms. Campbell?” He motions for Bernie to hand the quill to Serena. Serena carefully takes the white feather pen from Bernie. Their fingers brush. Bernie looks away.

As Serena sits down, Mr. Hanssen points to where her signatures should be placed. 

“Yes,” Serena says, “but I first want to read what I’m signing. Excuse me a moment, both of you.” 

Bernie leans against the side of the cabinet, enjoying a moment of openly watching Serena closely. Serena reads through the contract. On the last page, she sharply inhales and looks up at Mr. Hanssen. He nods.  
Serena plays with her necklace for a few moments, glances sideways to Bernie, then dips the quill in the ink. “Curious colour,” she says, as she neatly writes the date and signs the pages.

“New hospital policy,” says Mr. Hanssen. “Congratulations Ms. Campbell, Ms. Wolfe.”

 

***

“Your usual?” 

“No! We want to see your wine list, young man,” says Serena to the puzzled bartender at Albie’s. “We have cause for celebration!”

“Are you sure, Campbell?” Bernie laughs, but accepts the wine list from the bartender. “Who knew that they serve anything other than Shiraz, here?”   
Her tiredness seems to have disappeared, now that she has secured a job at AAU for the foreseeable future, getting to work shoulder to shoulder with Serena almost daily. 

“Oh look, we’ll take this one! Wolf mutt!” Serena points at a wine from the Moselle area of Germany: Wölfes Mut. “How appropriate!” 

Bernie laughs. “Yes, alright - we’ll try that one.”

“It’s a white wine, though, Ms. Campbell,” warns the bartender.

Serena ponders this information for a moment. “Oh well, why not! It is a new beginning, and I feel courageous!”

They toast to “Equals!” and taste the wine. 

“A little too dry for my liking, but it’s not bad,” is Serena’s conclusion. “Cheers, Wolf mutt.” She winks.

 

***

A few days later, Bernie returns from a nice quiet moment on the hospital’s roof. As she walks down the stairs, her phone beeps to indicate that she has received a new message. It is from her divorce lawyer. She quickly scans the email as she walks through the doors in to the hallway, and doesn’t see the young man in front of her. 

“Whoops, excuse me.”

“You are excused, Dr. Berenice Wolfe,” the man says in clipped tone.

Bernie turns. “Sorry, do I know you?”

“I’m Jason Haynes, Serena’s nephew?” 

“Of course, yes, hi.” She holds out her hand. 

He takes it carefully and gives it a strong shake. “It’s always nice to meet her new saviour.”

“Uh...colleague, you mean?”

“I always choose my words with care. I meant saviour.” 

“Well, I’m...”

“The swan queen’s saviour?” Jason asks impatiently. “Swan. Queen,” he repeats, as if he is doubting her ability to understand English. “You do know her?” 

“Yes, yes of course,” Bernie replies. How odd that just about everyone in this hospital seems to know of her dreams, except for Serena herself.   
“I know her, yes, but I just don’t think I’m her...eh...saviour exactly.”

Jason looks her up and down. “Hm. Perhaps you will not be. You are a bit scrawny compared to all the others.” 

“The others?”

“Yes, the many that tried before you? But...you stand a chance,” he adds cheerfully. “After all: all the others before you have failed!”

Bernie looks at him, one eyebrow up.

“They have all failed to break the spell? So you still have a chance. Besides, you are different. You are a woman. Perhaps that is to your advantage.” 

“...thanks?” 

“You’re welcome.” Jason nods at her. “You know, most don’t even get to see her in her true form. You are doing well.” 

“Ah. Glad to hear it. If you don’t mind me asking, break what spell, exactly?”

“The spell that forces her to be a swan at night?” He says impatiently. “How can you save her, if you don’t even know what you are saving her from?”

“Right, right of course. Sorry.” 

“It’s okay. The guy before you, Robbie, … he didn’t even catch her blood. It made me sad. And let’s not even talk about Edward..!”   
He waits a moment. “Basic human interaction dictates that you have to ask: ‘Edward, what about Edward?’ now. My suggestion that we shouldn’t talk about Edward was a figure of speech, meaning that it is a subject that shocks me, and I should like you to enquire after it.” 

“Right. What about Edward?”

“He DRANK the blood,” says Jason. “So as you can tell, I’m glad that you are taking the challenge now, even if you don’t know what you’re doing. I like you.”

“Well, likewise, Jason.”

“Does that mean we are friends now?”

Bernie nods. “I guess it does. Excuse me, I have to see to my patients.”

“Of course. I will walk with you, Dr. Berenice Wolfe.”

“Bernie is fine, now that we are friends?”

“I will walk with you, Dr. Bernie,” says Jason happily.

***

It turns out that Jason is visiting his aunt to seek advice on job hunting. His presence at her place of work seems to make Serena jumpy. She also seems very preoccupied with Morven’s emotional state concerning Arthur’s end of life care.   
It is an otherwise slow day on AAU, and so Bernie interprets her co-leadership as a way to stop Serena having to mix home life and work life, and so she offers to help Jason with his CV. 

They sit down at the table in the staff room. Jason has no previous work experience, and no job specific education, so Bernie encourages him to write down his unique qualities instead. It turns out to be quite a difficult exercise for him. He can’t come up with any.

“What would you like to be?” asks Bernie. “If you can be any profession in the world, what would you want to be?”

“The World’s Strongest man,” says Jason, without missing a beat.

“Okay, that is a good quality to write down: strong.”

“I’m not as strong as the world’s Strongest Man though…” He puts the pencil in his mouth.

“No, but you are stronger than a lot of people I know. Mentally strong too. And strength is your personal ambition.”

“I suppose…,” he says. He carefully writes down ‘strong’. 

“What else would you like to be?”

“I want to be a hero like you.”

“Hah, I’m hardly a hero!” 

“But you have been very brave,” says Jason. “You are very brave. All soldiers are brave. I want to be a soldier, but I can’t be. A soldier needs to be able to change plans, according to the tactics of the enemy, right?”

Bernie nods.

“I get very upset if plans change suddenly. I can’t be brave.” 

“Of course you can,” says Bernie. “Bravery isn’t just about going into war. It isn’t always about being strong or being a hero. You can also be brave by allowing yourself to be vulnerable with someone. To open up to them, to show your true self.” 

“I am always my true self. I don’t know what other self to be,” says Jason. He ponders it for a moment. “So then I agree. I am quite brave.”

Bernie smiles. 

Jason carefully writes ‘bravery’ down as one of his qualities. Then he looks up with a bright smile, and for the first time that day, he looks Bernie directly in the eyes. She instantly recognises him. He is the third swan.

 

****

That night in her dreams, she is standing opposite the swans again. She carefully takes off her coat. Folds it, and places it on the stone slab. She sits down next to it. She studies the Mr. Hanssen swan for a moment, and then the swan that has Jason’s eyes. And lastly the swan queen. She so desperately wants her to change into Serena again, to have her walk up and touch her. She thinks the same desire is reflected in the swan queen’s eyes. 

But then the bells chime and the swan looks away. They all take off and fly out of sight.

Bernie lies down on the stone and curls up into a ball. I’m quite sure I am the wrong person for this task, she thinks to herself. What makes me special? What qualifies me for this task?

When she wakes up, she feels for the stone under her cushion, but she only finds the little iron box. It is empty. Has the stone crumbled? Has she failed her mission? Did they, too, figure out that she must be the wrong person for the job? 

It can’t be. She thinks back to the cry of pain of the swan queen, of the hurt that she has witnessed in both the swan queen’s and Serena’s eyes. She feels her entire being tense up. She jumps out of bed. She must succeed. She’ll figure it out! She looks around her and sees the stone on her nightstand. Relief floods her. Underneath the stone is a little piece of rice paper, with a neatly printed message on it. Bernie holds the message at arm’s length and squints at it.

‘You always automatically qualify to do the right thing, because you are the only one right here, right now. I hope you will succeed. I like you. - Your friend, Jason.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter alcohol is added to the mix...


	7. Maceration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our leading ladies get soaked in alcohol for a while, to extract from their substance a more subtle, pure residue ;-)

Ow man, how boring can a meeting get? Bernie checks her phone to see the time. Forty five minutes in and Guy Self and Ric Griffin still have their horns locked and refuse to compromise about the allocation of a portion of the hospital’s innovation budget.

The screen of her phone lights up. A message from Serena. Bernie looks across the table. Serena seems deeply engaged in the conversation. “But Henrik,” she says. “I think these gentlemen are saying the exact same thing.”

“Quite,” says Mr. Hanssen sternly, but to no avail. Guy Self lays out his plan for the budget anew, and Ric Griffin gets annoyed anew and presents his own plan - again.

Bernie opens Serena’s message. It is a gif of a yawning baboon. Bernie smiles.  
“#quite!” she replies.  
She sees Serena glance at her phone and smile. 

After a few moments, she sees that Serena picks up her phone and starts tapping. She hopes she will be the recipient.

Her screen flashes again. When she sees the picture that Serena has sent her, she can’t help but bark out a laugh, that has everyone at the table sit up and look at her. It is a picture of an ostrich that wears the exact same expression as mr. Hanssen is currently sporting.

“Sorry, so sorry. Hah, hah! It’s just...a friend..they sent...they,” She starts laughing again as she squeaks out: “Never mind!”

“No, let’s never mind,” says Mr. Hansen.

“Mr. Hanssen, how much longer will this meeting last?” Serena asks. “As riveting as it is to be a spectator to a Ric and Guy showdown, I have a reservation at a restaurant for seven. It has an extensive wine list, you see - I can’t keep it waiting.” She winks at Bernie.

“Understood,” says Mr. Hanssen. “I think we have reached the end of our collective attention span.” He raises an eyebrow to Bernie. “Gentlemen, I would like each of you to write a proposal for the allocation of the budget, since both of you are so invested. I expect in on my desk before monday. We will then renegotiate. If you fail to hand in proposals, I will take a decision and you will have to live with it.” He holds up his hands to make sure that neither gentleman would get a further say in the procedure. “Enough, thank you. Some of us have been in theatre all day, and some of us have a life outside of the hospital. We will meet again next thursday and this meetings’ proceedings will be in your inboxes tomorrow afternoon. Enjoy your wine, Ms. Campbell. Have a good evening everyone.”

***

“At last!” says Serena to Bernie as they walk into their office on AAU. “I thought it was never going to end!”

“Hashtag quite!” says Bernie, earning her a roll of eyes and a smile. “Will you make your reservation in time?” 

“Oh, there is no reservation...I just wanted to get out of the meeting. But I wish there was! Good food and plenty of wine - sounds like heaven right about now.”

“Tell me about it,” says Bernie, closing down her computer. “Actually, I know an Italian, a little out of town with a nice view on the Severn.”

“Does it have an extensive wine list?” Serena puts on her coat and puts some papers in her handbag.

“Ah, yes, that’s why I mentioned it. Yes, a sommelier and the lot.” 

“Lead the way, Ms. Wolfe!”

“Uh...me?”

“Yes.”

“Tonight?” 

“Well, yes. Or do you have any other plans for tonight? More useless meetings to attend?”

“N-no.”

“Right then, that’s settled.”

“Uh, I have to..uh...change out of my scrubs first.”

“It’s a posh place, is it?” Serena winks and holds the office door open for them. 

“It is a bit. Nice though.” 

“Good.” Serena holds the door to the locker room open for them. 

“Uh, I have to change.”

“So you said. I’ll wait. I’m a patient woman, if there is a long list of exclusive wines to be sampled in the near future!” Serena sits down on one of the benches. Bernie swallows. Undressing in front of Serena reminds her of her swan dreams too much. With shaking hands, she tries to reveal as little skin as possible at any one time. Which sounds good in theory, but in practice it gets her hopelessly tangled in her sweater. She hears Serena chuckle, which only affirms that she is being watched. She is still blushing when she is shoving her feet into her boots.  
“Let’s go taste those grapes then,” says Serena, guiding her out of the locker room with her hand on the small of Bernie’s back. “Share a cab there? That way we can both sip of the nectar of the gods.”

“Of course,” mumbles Bernie without looking at Serena. She had rather hoped to get a few moments to herself, to recover a modicum of dignity - enough to handle the rest of the night with some grace. But Serena’s plan is certainly the most practical. 

***

When they arrive and are shown to a table, Bernie is glad to see the wine list proudly displayed on the table. It is as extensive as she remembered it to be. At least that part of the date - well not date, she corrects herself sternly: bite to eat with a colleague - is going well. She sighs as the waitress lights the candle between them. The candlelight, and no doubt the prospect of good wine, is making Serena’s eyes sparkle. It does all kinds of funny things inside Bernie’s belly.

The good food, copious amounts of alcohol and good conversation are certainly not helping either. Serena has never looked as beautiful to her - not even in her Swan Queen get up. Careful, she thinks to herself, or else you’ll fall in love. That is a very bad idea. “A toast to friendship!” she therefore blurts out, trying to re-establish her own boundaries out loud. 

“To friendship?” Serena lifts one eyebrow.

“Uh...yeah. Are we not friends? I mean, I know we are colleagues, but I was hoping...”

“Of course, we are.” Serena places a hand on Bernie’s. “I just...well,” she breathes in sharply. “Never mind. I am - quite - drunk.” 

“So you should be, Campbell. Three bottles between us, and I certainly didn’t drink half. You could have ordered by the glass!”

“You could have stopped me!”

“How?” 

Serena smiles demurely, then looks down. 

A charged silence stretches between them. Bernie wishes her brain wasn’t so foggy. Is Serena flirting with her? Why was it a bad plan again? Oh right, divorces and swans and the like. She feels in her pocket for the iron box. 

“Look,” she shows it to Serena. “Someone…eh... gave this to me.”

“What is it?” Serena peers through the intricate iron detailing at the gleaming stone. “Is it solidified wine in a tiny box?’

“It bloody isn’t.” 

Serena opens the lid and stares at the ruby for a while. Bernie can’t read her expression. Then Serena reaches into the box. “Ouch!” She quickly sets the little iron box down on the table. “It zapped me!” 

“Huh, odd.” Bernie puts the ruby back into her pocket. 

“Is that how you get all the ladies?” giggles Serena. “Show them your stone, have them touch it, zap them?” 

“No,” says Bernie, indignantly. “Let’s ask for the bill. I have an early meeting with Hanssen tomorrow. It would be nice if I was sober before then.”

 

***

It is a mistake, learns Bernie, to expect garden paths to lead certain ways. It is better to look where they actually go. If you expect a certain direction, but they go the other way, you end up falling into your flowerbed. Now there is a practical life lesson, that the kids should learn in school!

In an effort to get back up, Bernie grabs hold of the garden soil. Sand! She can’t remember consciously having felt the earth against her skin since that fateful evening in the Afghan desert. She laughs! Sand! Actual fucking sand that is on her skin! It is a beautiful, cool, soothing feeling. She grabs a few more handfuls and then just lets herself lie down onto it again. She soaks up its earthy goodness.

When she wakes up the next morning, she is somehow, and thankfully, in her own bed. She is fully dressed, and there is an awful lot of sand in the sheets, but nothing can kill her mood. She has dreamed of Serena, but only earthly Serena - no swans involved. She smiles, and wonders what Hanssen is going to want to talk to her about.


	8. Fixation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernie conquers her fear.

Mr. Hanssen wants to speak to her about a secondment to the Royal Free Hospital in London to help set up new trauma facilities. Bernie declines. She realises, to her own astonishment, that feels content at Holby City.

“You’ll have to come up with a much more exotic location than London!” she laughs.

“Very well,” says Mr. Hanssen, and he nods. “Challenge accepted.”

* * *

The feeling of contentment only builds during the weeks after that. The trauma work excites her, she feels like she is making real connections with her coworkers, and she lives for the flirty banter with Serena. 

But it turned out to be the calm before the storm. 

The moment she hears that it is Fletch that was stabbed with a knife by a mentally unstable AAU patient, panic rises in her chest. Serena tells her to get scrubbed in as they wheel Fletch into theater. It takes her a few moments to register what is being asked of her. Her heart is hammering in her chest, and she is shaking all over. 

She is still shaking when a nurse helps her into her gloves.   
Come on, Wolfe, she tells herself, steady hands!  
With great mental effort, she manages to ignore the nausea and upon finding out that Serena has also scrubbed in - both of them against protocol - both of them sure they are the only chance that Fletch may have - she calms down considerably. She tries to forget that it is Fletch they are dealing with, tries to take rational decisions, instead of emotional ones, and tries above all - to keep her trembling hands steady.

Afterwards, when ICU nurses arrive to take over the care of Fletch, all the fear rushes back into her system. Her legs feel like jelly and she is absolutely exhausted. She lets herself sink down onto the theater floor, head resting against the wall, heart pounding wildly.   
She is infinitely grateful when she feels Serena sitting down next to her.   
She tries to explain to Serena, how none of this would have happened, if she had paid more heed to their warnings about the mental state of their patient. But Serena is having none of it, tells her that no one could have known.

“Our friend and colleague is fighting for his life!” says Bernie, tears threatening to spill from her eyes..

“And he would be the first person to tell you, that you are the most fantastic, fearless doctor in this entire hospital,” counters Serena.

Bernie grimaces. She is the exact opposite. She is not fearless at all. She is so, so scared. She is scared of Fletch dying because of her stupid miscalculation.  
She looks into Serena’s eyes, and she is so scared that she will never be able to erase the pain that she sees in them. She is so scared that she will never match the enthusiasm for life that she sees in them. And above all she is so scared that she will never be worthy of the love that she can see in them.

But then, against the tidal wave of fear that is threatening to engulf her, she lunges forward and kisses Serena anyway. Serena pulls back for a moment, confusion on her features. Bernie sits paralysed, holds her breath - and then Serena is kissing her back.

* * * 

It takes Bernie a long time to fall asleep that night. The adrenaline of stabilizing Fletch is joined by the adrenaline of kissing Serena. Kissing - Serena! But eventually she manages to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

She wakes up in middle of the night to go to toilet, but realises with a shock that she is not sitting on the edge of her bed at all. She is sitting on the edge of the stone slab in the Afghan dessert. She hears the aftershock of the IED, the sonic boom that rolls off the hills. It makes her shiver in her coat. She stands up from the stone, and is amazed at how real the sand feels underneath the soles of her feet and between her toes.   
It takes a few minutes before she hears the flapping of the swans’ wings, and when they land before her, the stars’ light seems to illuminate every single individual feather.

She slowly opens the buttons of her coat, revels in the feeling of the breeze on her skin as she lets the coat fall into the dust. She breathes deeply, smelling and tasting the Afghan air, the memories of her time there flooding her momentarily. Then she looks at the swans before her again. They are gazing at her, silently.

“Serena,” Bernie whispers. “Please?” 

The middle swan walks towards her and changes into Serena midstep. “Tell me?” she says, as she cups Bernie’s face in her hands. 

“I’m so afraid,” says Bernie. “But I’m here, now.” 

“You are.” 

“I’m not brave at all; I’m so afraid of everything. I am the absolute most worthless person you could have gotten as your saviour, but I’m here now. I’m ready to do whatever it takes.”

A single bell rings out ones, in a clear high pitched tone. She hears the helper swans take off.

“Whatever it takes?” asks Serena. Her breath against Bernie’s lips.

“Yes,” replies Bernie. “Please?” 

And then Serena’s lips are on Bernie’s. The kiss is deep and slow, and the sensation is heightened by the silk of the corset against Bernie’s breasts, and the cool metal of the chainmail against her skin.   
Serena’s hands are in Bernie’s hair, and then find their way down the back of her scalp, down around her neck. For a moment Serena’s hands feel scorching hot around Bernie’s throat, as if her skin is singed, and Bernie’s breath is momentarily taken away. Then Serena’s mouth is on hers again and all other sensations are secondary.

That is, until the bells start tolling. Reluctantly, Serena pulls away, steps backwards and falls into the shape of the swan queen. Bernie looks at her fly away until she is no more than a speck of dust amongst the stars. She sits back down on the edge of the stone slab, and sighs. Did she promise: whatever it takes? What does that even mean? Has the spell been broken? Will it ever be? 

When she wakes up the next morning, the ruby is gone from under her cushion and so is its iron box, but there is a necklace around her neck. Bernie feels for a clasp, but there doesn’t seem to be one. She gets up to look into the bathroom mirror. She is wearing a whisper thin, copper coloured necklace with the ruby as its pendant.


	9. Ignition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernie battles doubt.

Bernie gets on the lift with Mr. Hanssen that morning. “Ms.Wolfe,” he nods. 

“Morning.”

She waits for him to broach the subject, congratulate her with the passing of the test, the breaking of the spell. But he doesn’t speak, and she doesn’t know how to begin to talk about it. So they remain silent until the lift doors open.

“A good day to you,” Hanssen says.

“Yeah, and you.” 

* * * 

She sees Jason in the hallway, wheeling out a patient that is allowed to go home. 

“Jason,” she says, as she walks after him. “Jason, I think I may have broken the spell.” 

“You probably haven’t, if you’re not sure,” he says, “and I am on duty. Please don’t speak to me now.”

* * *

When she gets to AAU, Fletcher tells her that Serena has called in sick. At first Bernie takes that as a good sign. The spell is broken, and Serena must be recuperating from being under its curse for so long. Right? Or has she called in sick because she wants to avoid Bernie? Is she embarrassed about their kiss?

During a break, she decides to go up to the roof, in hopes of finding Dom. He is indeed there, enjoying the afternoon sunshine on the metal stairs. She sits down next to him.

“I’ve broken the spell I think?”

“Have you?” 

“I think so. I kissed her.” 

“Did you?” He smiles. “Nice?”

“Nice.” She smiles back. And I mean, look.” She shows him her necklace. “She gave me this. The ruby is in here now.”

“Right,” Dom says. “Now what?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you knew.”

“I don’t. Happily ever after, maybe?”

She nods. “That sounds good.” 

They turn their faces to the sun and soak up the warmth.

* * *

But it doesn’t turn out to be so simple. The next few nights, she doesn’t dream of the swans at all.

And when Serena returns from sick leave, she avoids Bernie as much as possible, changes the subject as soon as Bernie tries to steer conversation it the direction of their kiss, and makes very sure that everything remains just as it always was.   
Except for the awkwardness between them.   
Except for the necklace.

Bernie decides to leave things be for while. Perhaps Serena needs some time. She will talk with Bernie when she is good and ready. And if she can’t kiss real life Serena again for the time being, then perhaps she can kiss swan queen Serena again soon. She is happy to fall asleep each night, but her nights remain dreamless.

After a few days, the awkwardness between Serena and herself begins to subside. Serena can make eye contact again, however briefly, and they can joke together again. Poor Ric, who has to look after a patient with important political ties to the NHS on AAU for the day, is the unfortunate butt of many of their jokes that day.  
He takes it all in stride though, and even invites the ladies for a drink at Albie’s with him.

“That Ric is buying, is rarer than hen’s teeth!” declares Serena, as they walk into the café.

“Go on then,” says Ric,holding out a bank note. “Go on, buy us a bottle.” Serena happily accepts the money, and walks up to the bar. 

Bernie and Ric find spot on the easy chairs, and let themselves fall down. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” says Ric. “The necklace?”

“Oh heh,” Bernie touches the ruby.

“A swan?” Ric asks.

“How do you know?”

“Oh, I once tried to save her too.”

“Her? Serena?”

“Serena.” Ric sighs. “Don’t worry. That ship has well and truly sailed. I found the courage to kiss her, but then I began to doubt everything. Was I even the right man for her? Was there anything to save her from?”

They are silent for a while, each sorting their own thoughts.

“What happened to the necklace?” asks Bernie.

“I cut it off, and gave it away to someone who I thought was better matched. Don’t repeat my mistake. It is one of the biggest regrets of my life.”

“To whom did you give the necklace?” asks Bernie. 

Ric stares out into the café for a while. Then he says: “Edward.”

“Please don’t cuss in front of the Sacred Blood,” says Serena, as she rejoins them with a bottle of Shiraz. 

Bernie and Ric share a wry smile, and resolutely change the subject.

 

* * *

She does dream of the swans again that night , but all they do is stare at her from a distance for a while, until the swan with Mr. Hanssen’s eyes pulls the icicle from under his wing. 

“Don’t!” shouts Bernie. “Don’t let her hurt herself.”

The companion swans carry the icicle in their beaks, and lay it at Bernie’s feet. 

“What? Do you think I’m going to hurt her?” 

The swan with Jason’s eyes, rolls those eyes at her. They waddle back and stare at her, until the bells toll and they fly away.

* * * 

It must be the new test, thinks Bernie upon waking up. Do I have to prove that I will not hurt her? If that’s the grand plan, then she should surely not try to forge a relationship with Serena. She is absolute rubbish when it comes to being a good lover, being a good life partner. Perhaps she needs to save Serena from herself? She can perhaps break Serena’s spell as a friend. Is friendship not the noblest form of love?

She redoubles her efforts to be a good and attentive friend. And at night, in her dream, she takes the icicle that is offered her, and she places it behind her, on the stone slab, out of harm’s way. It seems to be the right thing to do, because Serena steps forward out of the shape of the swan queen, and walks up to kiss Bernie. Kissing Serena in dreams probably can’t hurt, thinks Bernie. As long as she makes sure she absolutely doesn’t make any advances to Serena in real life. She can indulge in her dreams, and be a saintly friend during the day. 

There is just a little snag - real life Serena has begun, carefully, sweetly, to flirt with Bernie again. 

* * *

The companion swans bring her the icicle to her feet once more the next night. And for the first time, it flashes through Bernie’s mind that they are not asking her to harm Serena, they are asking her to stick the icicle into herself. She looks at how all three swans are standing there, watching her. Is Serena part of this plot? 

Serena seems to sense that something is amiss. She steps forward and out of the swan shape, walks up to Bernie and kisses her. “It’s alright”, she says, as she unbuttons Bernie’s coat. “Will you lie down for me?” She gestures at the stone slab. 

Bernie swallows, and shakes her head. “No, thank you.”

The bells toll and the swans take off.

* * *

Hanssen asks her to go on a secondment the next morning. He asks her to go to Kiev to set up a trauma center there. 

It is a wonderful opportunity really, it would look outstanding on her CV, it would really help Holby City in securing EU grants, and it would be really good to be away from Serena for a bit. Out of sight, out of heart. It would hopefully help Serena transfer her affections to someone else.

“Sounds interesting,” she says. 

Hanssen opens the flap of his jacket and takes an icicle out. Bernie’s eyes go wide from shock. But then he clicks on one end of it, and it is a pen. 

“Right, if you would just sign here, and here, then I’ll make a scan and send it over to Kiev.”

“Ehm…” Bernie’s keeps her eyes on the icicle pen. She takes a shuddering breath. “Ehm...can I think about it?”

“Of course.” Mr. Hanssen smiles. “Let me know before the end of the day?”

***  
“What did Hanssen want?” asks Serena, when she walks into their office later that morning. 

“Oh um...” Bernie hands her the papers about the trauma center. 

Serena’s eyes go so very sad, as she trips over her words to congratulate Bernie and wish her well. It is Bernie’s noble and honest intention to give her a hug, and tell her that it will be for the best, but she makes the mistake of looking into Serena’s eyes. There is such longing there, that it takes her breath away, and then... it is glorious to be kissing Serena again.

But as soon as she is alone in their office once more, Bernie realises her mistake. She needs to save Serena, not harm her more. She runs up to the office of Mr. Hanssen, and signs all the necessary papers for her secondment in the red ink that flows from the icicle pen of Mr. Hanssen. She books her flights for the next day. Soft healers make stinking wounds, after all.

When she tells Serena, she is expecting to read relief on her face. But all she sees is anguish, and a neediness that she doesn’t know what to do with. Bernie tries to tell her that it is really for the best, but as per usual she muddles up her words, and only succeeds in making Serena more sad, more angry, more desperate. They part ways with a fight.

***  
Her time in Kiev is miserable. The work is easy enough, the coworkers friendly enough, but she misses Serena. She does her best to stay on communications lock down, but it is so hard to not reach out and tell Serena just how much she is missed. 

Serena is all she thinks about during the day, and all she dreams about at night.

The companion swans in her dreams bring her the icicle, Serena kisses her and takes the icicle from her, and then asks her to lie down. “Put your wrists in those chains for me,” Serena says in her dreams. But Bernie just looks at the icicle, and shakes her head.

During the day she works hard. The trauma center is ready a full month before it was due to be opened. She writes to Mr. Hanssen that she is ready to return to Holby, and promptly gets an email back that she is welcome to stay a bit longer, should she want to help the trauma center through its inaugural week. AAU is running fine without her; she can take her time.

Bernie doesn’t know how to feel about that. Does Mr. Hanssen not want her back? Was she so much of a liability to him? Did he send her on a secondment, just to be rid of her for a while?  
She doesn’t quite understand. But she does agree that Serena might benefit from a little while longer without her too, and so she accepts the offer to stay in Kiev.

That same night, she also receives a lengthy email from Jason. He tells her about a few additions to his DVD collection, and also about Serena telling him that she loves a lot of people - Jason chiefly among them - but that she is in love with Bernie. 

Bernie shuts down her laptop immediately upon receiving that email, and goes out onto her balcony for a smoke. Her heart is beating wildly in her chest and her hands are trembling when she is trying to light her cigarette. She suddenly realises that she isn’t all that scared that she will hurt someone again, due to being a lousy lover. Her true fear is that she herself will be hurt again.   
She is scared of Serena’s love, and that it might not be enough for her. She doubts that she can fully trust Serena. 

Well, that needs to change.

* * *

That night, when she finds herself lying on the stone slab underneath the Afghan stars, her whole body quivers in anticipation. The air seems to tremble and echo from an explosion, and then there is just silence. It isn’t long before she sees a few of the stars move, and the swans getting closer and closer. They land before her elegantly, and Serena changes shape upon touchdown. The companion swans give her the icicle, and she walks up to Bernie.

“Tell me,” she demands. She tilts Bernie’s chin up. 

“I...” Bernie starts, glancing at the icicle, then looking away. 

“You were full of doubt, is that right?” Serena asks.

“Yes.” 

“And now?”

“I will..,” Bernie takes a gulp of air. “I will trust you.” 

“Will you?”

“Yes.”

“You trust me not to hurt you without consent?”

“Fully.” 

A single clear tone of a bell rings out. Behind them the companion swans lift off.  
Bernie’s hands go to her coat buttons, but Serena takes hold of her wrists.   
“No,that will be my privilege from now on.” She lifts one eyebrow. “Unwrapping you.”

She lays down the icicle, and kisses Bernie, as she slowly feels for each button and unfastens it. She puts her hands inside the coat and softly scrapes her nails up to Bernie’s shoulders. The coat falls at her feet. Bernie is hyper aware of the evening breeze caressing her skin. 

Every nerve ending is at high alert, her breathing erratic. Serena traces her fingertips over Bernie’s collar bones, down along her arms, and then takes her by the hand. Bernie is led to the stone slab. “Lie down for me?”   
When she lies down on the stone, Bernie can feel the residual warmth of the day’s sunshine emanate from its surface. 

“Alright?” asks Serena.

Bernie nods, and closes her eyes; Serena’s gaze is too much to bear.  
She feels Serena sitting next to her, the chainmail softly pressing against her side. Serena’s hand caresses the side of her face, and her throat.   
Then she gets up and takes Bernie’s wrist. She stretches her arm out and places it in one of the metal cuffs. 

The cuff feels hot around Bernie’s wrist. It seems to burn into her skin for a moment. “Ow!”

“I’ll loosen it, hang on,” says Serena. “Better?”

She can move her wrist inside the cuff a little now, and strangely, the metal feels cool against her skin.  
Serena takes her other wrist,stretches her arm, and clicks the other cuff in place.   
Bernie hears the ringlets of Serena’s chainmail tinkle softly, as she moves to the other end of the stone slab. 

She strokes Bernie’s shins, then takes hold of Bernie’s ankles and gently spreads Bernie’s legs open. Bernie hears the chainmail scraping against the stone, feels it gently scraping against the inside of her legs. She feels the feathers on the side of Serena’s crown caress her thighs. She pushes her hips upward,and hears a soft low chuckle. But then Serena’s lips are on her, gently sucking and kissing. It doesn’t take much to tip Bernie over the edge.  
On the rhythm of the tolling bells - those hellish bells, the waves of orgasm crash over her. Bernie cries out, shudders, pushes her hips up against Serena. But Serena is already moving away. Bernie feels the cuff around her one wrist spring open, and a few moments later the other.

The bells are louder now. The orgasm is still reverberating through her. Bernie feels Serena sitting down next to her. Serena caresses Bernie’s hair, then presses a kiss on Bernie’s forehead. 

Bernie puts her arms around her, pulling her down upon her, kissing her. “Please stay,” she whispers against her lips. 

“I can’t. You know I can’t.”

Bernie nods, eyes closed. Reluctantly, she opens her arms, feels how Serena gets up. She hears her move away, the tinkling of the chainmail one second, the whooshing of great wings the next. Keeping her eyes closed, Bernie turns on her side, hugs her knees to herself and lets her breathing calm down. 

Upon waking, she books the next available flight back to Holby and discovers that making love to Serena in real life is even better than in her dreams.

***

It isn’t until Serena asks her about her new bracelet, that Bernie notices the thin silver band around her wrist, inset with the sparkling ruby. She feels for her necklace, but it is indeed gone. She blushes, and mumbles something incoherent, and feels very relieved when Serena lets the subject go.

She isn’t so lucky the following day, when she is back on AAU, and they are scrubbing in for trauma surgery together. Bernie had forgotten all about the bracelet. Her mind had been occupied with - well - with other memories. 

“You will need to take that bracelet off, you know” warns Serena. 

“Huh, oh - yeah.” Bernie looks for a clasp, but finds none. Then she tries to slide out of it. She even lathers up her arm with the surgical soap, and tries again. But the bracelet will not come off. 

“Had it made to fit,” she grins awkwardly to Serena.

“That’s a bit stupid.” 

“Yeah.”

“Well we’re just going to have to cut it,” suggests Serena.

“No!” Bernie steps backwards. “No, I’ll go have it fixed. I’ll page Raph to step in.” She leaves a bewildered Serena behind. She is sure that words will be had later.

She isn’t wrong. As soon as she closes the door to their shared office behind her a few hours later, the silver bracelet now sporting a custom made clasp, Serena turns her chair and asks: “So, your bracelet. Does it have special significance?”

“It’s personal.” Bernie doesn’t look at Serena. She turns on her computer and restacks some things on her desk.

“Okay. Is that one of those bracelets that signify...You know what, never mind.” Serena fiddles with her necklace. “Are you seeing someone else?”

“No!” 

“Right. Okay, don’t raise your bristles. It isn’t as if that is without precedent.” 

Bernie’s voice is full of bitterness: “There. is. no. one. else.”

“Okay, okay.” There is a long pause, in which Bernie studies the patterns on the floor. “Nothing else you want to talk to me about?”

“No, I don’t.”

Serena continues: “Just... It seems like a pretty big thing, to attach something to your body permanently. It obviously means a lot to you. Why can’t you talk about it?”

Bernie doesn’t say anything, continues to stare down at her desk.

“Is that the stone that you showed me in a restaurant once?”

“Yeah.” 

“You said someone gave it to you. Who gave it you? Can you at least tell me that?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Obviously.” Serena taps her foot. “Try me. I’ve got two degrees.”

“Look you won’t believe me when I tell you, so let’s just…”

“Bernie..!?” 

“A swan, okay?” Bernie looks up. She stares Serena defiantly in the eyes. “A swan gave it to me.” They stare at each other. 

Then Serena’s voice sounds cold, soft and a little too calm. “A swan gave you a stone, and now you have welded it around your wrist as a token of...what exactly? Your fast approaching insanity? You just stick to that story, Berenice. And for what it is worth, I think it’s ugly.” With that, she leaves the office.

* * *

Annoyingly, an angry Serena is a bit of a turn on. Equally annoyingly, Serena seems to have an absolute awareness of her effect on Bernie,and she takes full advantage of it all day, making Bernie drop equipment, walk into walls, forget medical terminology, and all round make a fool of herself.  
But Serena isn’t cruel. In the afternoon, when Bernie returns to their office after a round of the wards, she finds a coffee from Pulses on her desk - the universal code for ‘truce’. 

They silently walk to the parking lot that night. Suddenly Serena stops, and turns to Bernie.

“Are you sure you are not seeing someone else?”

“How can I? All I can think about is you.” 

“Hm.” Serena pulls gently on the lapels of Bernie’s coat. “The right answer. And you’re in luck, because I’m really in the mood for mindblowing sex tonight.” 

“Oh now, that is a stroke of luck,” smiles Bernie. She presses a kiss on Serena’s nose.

“Can’t have some piece of jewelry get in the way of that, now can we.” Serena looks down to Bernie’s wrist and huffs. “I’m driving. Come on.”

* * * 

“Can you please just tell me about your bracelet,” asks Serena that night, when they are spent, and warm and not yet untangled.

“Serena..! Not again,” warns Bernie.

“Is it something to do with me? With us? Is that why you can’t talk to me about it?”

Bernie gasps a little, and tries to cover it up with a cough. But there’s no point lying about it. “Yeah,” she says, finally.

“Okay... Will you tell me, someday?”

“I will.”

“Good. It’s not that ugly, anyway.” Serena kisses her, and turns around, pulling Bernie’s arm around her. Her hands go to Bernie’s wrist, and fiddle with the bracelet for a while. She opens and closes the clasp a few times, hisses softly when the stone zaps her, and then her hands still around Bernie’s wrist. “Night.”

Bernie whispers “night” into her hair.

 

* * *

When she steps into the lift the next day, on her way up to ICU, Jac is already in the lift. “Wolfe,” she greets. Her gaze is immediately fixed upon Bernie’s wrist. Never one for the exchange of pleasantries, she gets right to the point as soon as the doors close. “So, what animal do you dream of?”

Bernie looks up. “Oh uh...A swan. You had a bracelet too?”

“Hm,” says Jac. “Mine had an amethyst though.”

“And your animal?” 

“Scorpion.”

Bernie nods. “Ah.”

“I had to prove my courage to them - fine. They wanted me to prove my trust in them - no problem. But then the ugly bastard wanted me to poison myself.”

“Poison yourself? What did you do?”

“I told them where to stick their stinger.”

Bernie grins. “Subtle.”

“Yeah, well, subtlety is not exactly my M.O.”

“No,” Bernie agrees. “What happened?”

Jac shrugs. “I stopped dreaming of them. My bracelet fell off my wrist after a while. The amethyst broke in half.” The lift doors open and Jac steps out. She looks back at Bernie. “Fuck me if I was never going to poison myself, but I have regretted failing to break that spell, every single day. I hope you can find a way to get over yourself, Wolfe. Serena seems worth it.”

The lift doors close.


	10. Mortification

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is where the story takes a turn for the truly dark.  
> Please heed the warnings in the tags.

Over the next months Bernie often wishes that life was as easy as a scorpion demanding that you poison yourself.

Serena’s troubled daughter Elinor is home from university for a few days, suffers a light head injury, and somehow succumbs to the injury. Bernie is no stranger to grief, having had the bad fortune to have to share news of the death of a young medic to her parents, having had to bury her father - but the unexpected death of the child of your loved one...it is in a category of hell that is all its own.

Serena resorts to being insufferably demanding at work, to drinking too much, to pushing Bernie away. But most worryingly, she begins to speak of death as a welcome respite from the grief. She had confided in Bernie that she had attempted suicide before in her early twenties. It seems at the forefront of her mind again these days, and no amount of caring, no amount of love from Bernie seems to make the slightest difference.  
One particularly dark day, she even tells Bernie outright that she has nothing left to live for. When Bernie is alerted an hour later that Serena has not turned up for her elective, and someone else reports that she was seen in the stairwell on the sixth floor, Bernie fears that Serena is going to jump from the roof. But when they find her, she is sipping Shiraz in a deck chair. Bernie joins her, holding hands, looking up to the Holby’s night sky, and managing to talk for a full hour, avoiding the elephant in the room.  
It is Bernie who finally cracks and says: “This is where you tell me, you want to go on a sabbatical. Go and find yourself…” It is expected, it is for the best, but it nevertheless hurts like hell when Serena confirms it. 

It hurts, but it seems like something that she will survive. She won’t see Serena during the day anymore, but she will still be able to see her at night.  
It is definitely a painful goodbye, but it doesn’t kill her to let Serena go.

* * *

 

But when she dreams of the swans that night, she immediately senses that something is horribly wrong. Their eyes are sadder than usual, and a little wild. When the swan queen transforms to Serena and walks up to her, Bernie already knows what she is going to say. An icy fear takes hold of her heart.

“It is time for our migration to the West, Berenice. This is the last night I will see you.” 

Bernie hangs her head. 

“You do understand? It has nothing to do with you, with us - it is a fundamental call that is within me. I can’t ignore it.”

“I understand,” says Bernie. And she should, with all the migrations calls she herself has heeded during her military career. 

She should understand, but she really doesn’t. She had to let Serena go from Holby. Why does she now also need to lose Serena in her dreams? She doesn’t think she’ll survive. She can only see a grey, bland future for herself. Cam and Charlotte have their own life now, Jason is living with Allan, Holby no longer holds any mystery for her, and now she will lose Serena, completely. The old familiar tendrils of depression are trying to penetrate her soul already. She pushes all of these thoughts away. Not yet, not yet - she thinks - I still have this night. She is still here, now. Drink these last moments of happiness in.

“Bernie love, look at me.” 

She looks up. Serena has never looked more beautiful. The stars of the night sky behind her take the shape of a glittering aura around her, and it seems as if Serena’s skin glows softly. Her eyes are impossibly dark. There is a sparkle of life in them that is so fierce that all the pain that swirls around it, can’t seem to extinguish it. 

I wasn’t able to take her pain away though, Bernie’s inner voice nags. I was chosen to save her, but I wasn’t enough. I have failed again. I’m never enough. A tear falls from her eyes. Serena wipes it from her cheek. It instantly hardens into a teardrop shaped moonstone. Serena hangs it from one of the many ringlets of her chainmail, then she combs her hand through Bernie’s hair. 

“One more time, Love? Hm?”

Bernie nods. She wants to shy away from Serena’s touch.She feels too vulnerable, too raw. But this is their last chance. She lets Serena undress her and lets herself be bound to the stone. The heavy, raw sadness in her body seems to only enhance the intensity of the sensations of Serena’s touch. It isn’t long before a deep orgasm ripples through her, and it seems to last forever. But inevitably, this eternity comes to an end too, and Bernie finds herself lying on the stone slab, feeling empty and desperate, looking up at the Afghan night sky, while Serena opens the cuffs. 

_Not yet, not yet, not yet,_ drums through Bernie with every heartbeat. _I can’t lose her, not yet._ And so she reaches up for Serena, as soon as she is out of the cuffs,grabbing hold of her hair, pulling her down, kissing her fiercely. She can feel Serena hesitate for a moment. But then she kisses her back.  
Bernie rolls over. She is on top of Serena; feeling Serena’s warmth beneath her, kissing her mouth, and her jaw, and her throat.

But then - the most horrific of sounds - the bells begin to toll.

 _Not yet, I can’t, not yet_ \- the mantra is repeating itself within Bernie. She feels the tears fall down her cheeks, as she kisses Serena’s face, her nose, her eyes.  
She hears her tears solidify and chink against the stone slab beneath them. She hears the companion swans behind her rustle their feathers - getting ready to fly away, forever.  
They can fly wherever they want, but not Serena. Bernie can’t lose her, not yet.  
Beneath her, Serena moves to get up, but Bernie’s body won’t let her. Every fibre of her is telling her to keep Serena down, keep her here. 

_Not yet._

She hears the swans behind take flight. 

“Bernie, please?” Serena is begging her now. 

_Not yet. I can’t._

Bernie feels Serena’s body struggling to take the shape of a swan. Bernie grabs hold of Serena’s wrists and clamps the chains onto them. There is a wild fear in Serena’s eyes. The bells keep tolling, louder and louder. Serena struggles against the constraints,and Bernie has to look away, hands over her ears, so as to not hear the bells, but the sound of them is swelling, and combining with a frantic clanging of the chains and the chinking of her tears. 

With a shock, Bernie wakes up and silences her alarm clock. She sits up in her bed, hands in her hair, tears streaming down her face. What has she done?


	11. Putrefaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They end up in a really dark place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please skip this chapter if you are triggered in any way by emotional abuse.

Bernie goes to work on automatic pilot, like a drone. Everyone has sympathy for her. They all know that Serena has gone on a sabbatical. They have all had a taste of the difficulties of their home life for the past few months. And so they bring her extra coffee, and they do as much of the paperwork themselves as they can manage. They ask her opinion on matters that they really don’t need second opinions on, just to give her something to do, to make her feel better. It is all very sweet, really, but they don’t know the real reason why Bernie is in this state. They don’t know just how deeply she has alienated from herself. 

That night, Bernie is scared to fall asleep. She is scared that she is going to find the stone slab empty, the chains dangling limply from it; that she will find Serena gone forever. But she is impossibly more scared to find Serena still there, imprisoned, cold rejection and hatred in her eyes.

When she finally drifts off, and finds herself lying on the stone slab, the first thing she notices is Serena’s breath on her shoulder. Her treacherous heart leaps. Serena is still here! But a cold fear seeps into her bones immediately. She doesn’t dare turn over, doesn’t dare to look into Serena’s eyes. She lies very still, trying to control her breathing. After a little while she hears the soft clamouring of the chains, and then feels Serena’s fingers brush through her hair. And then her soft voice: “It’s alright, love. We’ll be alright.”

Bernie was scared she would find Serena gone, and she was scared she would find Serena still chained to the stone, eyes full of hatred. But what she should really have been terrified of, was the implausible third option: Serena is still chained to the stone, and she loves Bernie still, despite what she has done. Bernie’s stomach turns, and she wakes up in her apartment, feet already running towards the toilet. She violently throws up, and sinks down onto the cold tiles. 

 

* * *

The next night she struggles against falling asleep again. She wants nothing more than to feel Serena’s fingers in her hair, to hear her voice, but at the same time it is her worst nightmare. 

When she finally opens her eyes to the Afghan stars, she turns over immediately and buries her head against Serena’s shoulder. The chains jangle softly, as Serena strokes her hair, while Bernie cries and apologises over and over. 

“It’s alright, love,” whispers Serena. “You are only keeping me here, because you love me, right?” 

Bernie nods against her shoulder and begins crying anew.

That morning, when she wakes up, she is still crying.

* * * 

This is how she spends the next few weeks, working and crying - day and night.  
Then, one day, she runs into Jac in the lift on her way home. 

“You need to sort yourself out, Wolfe” says Jac. “I don’t know what your animal is doing to you, but you need to think of yourself. You can’t go on like this.”

Bernie knows Jac is right. When she gets home, for the first time in weeks, she is looking forward to sleeping. She is going to make this right. Enough is enough.

When she awakes under the Afghan stars, she turns to Serena and looks her in the eyes for the first time. There is no longer a sparkle in them, just a soft glow, and still so much pain. “This can’t go on,” says Bernie. “ I’m going to set you free.”

There is a flash of panic in Serena’s eyes. “What?” she whispers. “Don’t you love me anymore?” 

“Yes, yes of course!”

“Well then, I told you, I don’t want to go.” Serena’s hands are gripping Bernie’s upper arms. 

“That is what you don’t want,” says Bernie. “You need to do what you really want. You need to follow your call.” Bernie pushes Serena’s hands away from her. The ringlets on Serena’s chainmail are all bejeweled with Bernie’s solidified tears now, gleaming in the star light.

“I can fight the migration,” Serena pleads. 

“It’s hurting you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

““I’m fighting it, I’m trying. I want to be here, for you. Don’t you want me here?”

Bernie is silent for a while. She looks up into Serena’s fearful eyes. “Yes,” she says finally. “Of course I do.”

Serena sighs, strokes Bernie’s hair, relief flooding her features. “Silly.” 

It breaks all Bernie’s resolve. She closes her eyes. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Serena chains jangle as she takes Bernie’s head in her hands. “Come here.” She kisses Bernie’s forehead. Without opening her eyes, Bernie lifts her head, searches for Serena’s lips and kisses her fiercely. 

* * *

For the first time in weeks, Bernie wakes up refreshed. She spends some hours at work searching for job opportunities away from Holby. As far away from Holby as possible, in fact. A few days later, she signs a contract with Médecins Sans Frontières for a position in Sudan. She also books a holiday to the South of France to join real life Serena for a glorious week of grape picking and love making. 

* * *

The nights are easier, now. She looks forward to seeing Serena in their own little bubble in the Afghan dessert. She can look at her now, touch her, even kiss her - all without succumbing to grievous shame and self loathing. Although they still have their moments of course.

There is the night, for example, when Bernie notices that Serena has been crying. Serena admits to missing her companion swans.

“What do you miss about them?” asks Bernie.

“Certain things I would talk to them about,” says Serena. “Swan stuff - you know?”

“Can’t you talk to me about it? I want you to be able to talk to me about everything.” 

“I’ll try,” Serena says. I’m sorry to bother you with this. You’re all the company I could ever need. Truly,” says Serena, and she caresses Bernie’s cheek. 

But Bernie knows. She is still not enough. 

* * *

Then there is the night in which Bernie first notices the red skin and scrapes on Serena’s wrists. 

“What happened?” she asks.

“It’s nothing,” says Serena, positioning her wrists in the cuffs again so the wounds are barely visible. 

“It’s not noting, let me see.” Bernie takes one of Serena’s hands in hers and pushes the metal cuff down as far as it goes. “Serena, what happened? How long have you had this?”

“I...It’s just…” Serena looks away. “I can’t help it. When you are not here, it is hard to fight against the migration call. It is easier to fight against the restraints, sometimes.”

“Serena!” Bernie feels nauseous.

“I do love you, I want to stay here, I do. It is just that the call is so strong.”

“You can’t hurt yourself!” 

“I’m sorry. I’ll try harder. I promise.” There are tears in Serena’s eyes. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Of course I worry. You can’t just get hurt like this, and expect me not to worry.”

“It’s superficial. A few scrapes...”

Bernie sits up, and takes the seam of her coat sleeve in her mouth. After a few thorough pulls with her teeth, the seam gives way and she is able to rip a strip of fabric from her coat. With the utmost care, she binds the fabric around Serena’s wrists. 

“The cuffs will be more comfortable this way, anyway,” she says. 

“Thank you, yes. Much better,” says Serena, and she hums as Bernie kisses her.

* * *

Months go by, without much of a change. Bernie’s entire being still aches to hide away in Serena’s arms each night, but she doesn’t find refuge there - not really. A temporary relief perhaps, but nothing to even carry her through the following day. 

She changes jobs in hopes of finding professional satisfaction in setting up a trauma center in Nairobi - but it, too, becomes routine. Real life Serena has returned to drab old Holby, and Bernie tries to get her to join as co-lead in Nairobi, but it is very apparent to her from the start, that Serena is not prepared to let her life and friends in Holby go for Bernie. Bernie is not enough.

At night, Bernie spends her dreaming hours in Serena’s arms. They hold each other, kiss each other occasionally, but it never goes any further. Serena doesn’t initiate sex, and Bernie is afraid to overstep her boundaries. 

They also run out of things to say to each other. There are only so many ways in which one can apologise for holding the other captive, only so many ways in which one can express one’s absolute devotion to the other, without it sounding like a well rehearsed line from a play that they perform for each other each day.  
Bernie can’t speak about her real life with Serena in her dreams, and is increasingly frustrated about her inability to communicate through social media with Serena in real life too. What can you share about a life that is so separate? What do you say to the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, but you know you are not enough for? Because by now it has become increasingly clear that Bernie is, in fact, not Serena’s saviour. She may have passed the first two tests, but she knows with absolute certainty how badly she has failed the third. There will be others after her. She will certainly be named in the list of “many others that failed before”. 

 

* * *

In her day-life, she decides on a whim to visit Holby, to try one final time to persuade Serena to join her in Nairobi. But with every passing minute it is clearer; Serena doesn’t consider her part of the family. Serena has made a new life for herself in Holby, a life that will not fit Bernie. Serena wants to care for Jason, Gretchen and the new baby. Bernie isn’t enough. She is never enough.  
And so, when Serena pushes her away after a new moment of grief for Elinor, Bernie lets herself be pushed away. She walks away from Serena. She walks away from her life.

* * *

She realises, sitting in her hotel room by herself that night, that the prospect of seeing Serena in her dreams still, is filling her with dread instead of hope. 

She once had the hope of breaking Serena’s spell, of saving her, of serving her. But she realises, with a renewed clarity, that what she has done - instead - is to let the spell catch both of them. They are both living under its curse now, allowing it to poison her against Serena’s wellbeing, letting it turn her into an accomplice, transforming her into a stranger to herself; a monster. She is not serving Serena; she is suppressing her.

And so, as soon as she joins Serena on the stone slab that night, she sits upright and begins to unfasten the chains. 

She sees the fear in Serena’s eyes, but can only counter-offer absolute determination. 

“I will fly away,” warns Serena.

“I know.”

“I may never see you again,” 

“I understand” says Bernie.

“Do you still love me?” 

“Forever,” says Bernie. A single bell rings out, just as the chains fall away. Bernie wants to kiss Serena one last time, but Serena immediately changes into the shape of a swan, and without looking back, she lifts off.

Bernie turns around, not wanting to see her disappear into the night sky. She lets herself fall to her knees next to the stone slab. There are no more tears left in her, just a vast emptiness. The bells begin to toll. Bernie lets her head bump into the stone.Then she bangs her fists onto it, screaming out in frustration. The anger builds within her. She failed. 

As the sound of the bells swells, she slams her arms down again, and hears the metal of her bracelet chink against the stone. Again and again she hits the bracelet on the stone, until the metal finally gives way. The pieces of bracelet fall from her wrists. She picks them up and sees that the stone has cracked. She has failed. She stands up and hurls the broken bracelet away into the desert. She doesn’t hear them land.

The bells are making a deafening, roaring sound now.

Bernie wakes up to the loud ringing of her phone. When she answers, she hears the calm voice of Mr. Hanssen. “Ms. Wolfe, sorry to disturb your sleep. There’s been an emergency. I understand you are in Holby for a visit? Your presence is required on AAU.”


	12. Elixeration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the finale

The roads are mercifully empty at three in the morning. It is a very clear night. There is no moon, but she can see the stars, despite Holby’s skyglow. She doesn’t stop at Pulse’s, but goes straight up to AAU. The ward seems eerily calm for an emergency. Perhaps everyone is in theater already? 

The scrubs machine in the locker room seems stuck. It won’t give out a pair of fresh scrubs. She kicks against it and scans her pass anew. That seems to do the trick. A pair of scrubs is distributed to her, but it is a white pair, instead of AAU’s standard bright blue. No one has told her that they were going to have new colours. But she has no time to make a fuss about these details. There is an emergency to be handled. She quickly changes into the scrubs.

She goes to nurses’ station, but there is no one there. AAU’s main pager is there though, lying on the desk, abandoned. She is going to have words with whoever was in charge tonight!  
The pager is already blinking. There is no return phone number, just an unfamiliar code: 93. She looks it up in the desk manual. Behind the code it just says ‘roof’. For a split second she thinks it must mean the helicopter deck, but she knows that code by heart. With a sigh she decides there is nothing for it, but to go up to the roof and see who needs AAU’s assistance there.

The outer door to the roof is always a little hard to open. She puts her shoulder into it and then stands under the clear night sky. The big metal door shuts behind her with a decisive clunk.   
“Hello?” she shouts. “Mr. Hanssen? Anyone? Does anyone need a hand?” She sees something move, and quickly walks to the middle of the roof. 

“Oh it’s you,” she says. Eddie ‘The Pigeon’ Edwards is proudly pacing the roof. “Did you page me?” He turns his head for a moment, peers up at Bernie, and then noisily flaps up and away, into the night. 

 

Bernie stands and watches him for a few moments and then she notices that the roof looks a bit different since she was last here. Instead of the metal staircase and a myriad of pipes and exhausts, the roof is empty, with the exception of a raised, grey stone platform in the middle of the roof. She walks towards it, but stops in her tracks, the hair in her neck raised. Because from behind her, she hears the all too familiar sound of the rushing of great wings. She turns around and sees two swans swoop elegantly onto the roof. Upon touch down both of them change into human form. 

“Auntie Bernie!” Jason shouts and runs up to Bernie. “I thought you had gone back to Nairobi forever!”

“Jason!” Bernie opens her arms and fiercely hugs him. 

Jason steps aside and lets Mr. Hanssen step forward. He shakes her hand. “Good to see you again, Ms. Wolfe. Your counsel will arrive shortly.”

“My counsel?” Bernie frowns. “Is this a tribunal? Wait, am I dreaming? I think I woke up? You phoned me?”

“Ah, yes - these are confusing times. All will be clearer soon. Jason, will you light the candles?” Mr. Hansen sets down a suitcase and takes a packet of candles and a lighter from it. Jason starts lighting candles and putting them in a wide circle around them, as Mr.Hansen takes his place on the short end of the stone platform. He unfolds a square white cloth that he carefully drapes over the stone, and puts some attributes down onto it. A silver chalice, a gold plated paten and a stack of papers. 

The circle of candles gives off a bright light, but it is difficult to see beyond its boundary now. 

“You can stand here, auntie Bernie.” Jason directs her to stand close to the stone platform.

They hear the door to the roof open and close with a clunk. A familiar person steps into the circle of candlelight.

“Ah, mr. Copeland, glad you could join us,” greets Mr. Hanssen.

Dom looks frightened. “Why was I asked to come here? What do you want from me? Is this a dream? Is this a ritual? What is going to happen?” 

“You’ll be fine, Dom,” says Jason. “Just stand beside Bernie. You’ll be alright.”

“What’s that?” They hear the door open and close anew. “What is that shadowy figure over there?” Dom points to someone just outside the circle. 

“Ah, Mr. Griffin. Welcome,” says Mr. Hanssen.

“I wasn’t sure I was invited.” Ric steps into the circle with a frown. “Is this another one of those very lively dreams? I haven’t had one of these for a while.” He looks at mr. Hanssen skeptically. “What’s going on, Henrik?”

“Please take your place at Bernie’s side,” says Jason. “We will commence any minute.”

They hear the door open and close once more. “What is she doing here?” asks Ric. “Is she part of this?” He points at Jac, who is stepping into the circle.

“Welcome, Ms. Naylor. Your presence is much appreciated,” says Mr. Hanssen. 

“I should certainly hope so. Here goes another peaceful night’s sleep. Where do you want me? On the platform? Are we going to have a ritual killing? Or am I already dead?”

“You can stand next to Bernie. There will be no deaths, tonight,” says Jason.

“Are you sure? Because there certainly are a great number of dead people around for this little circus,” says Jac, pointing at three people who are stepping over the circle’s boundary. 

“Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. McKinnie, and Elinor,” says Mr. Hanssen.

They nod, and silently take place on the other side of the stone platform. 

“Hey Elinor.” Jason waves. “I’ve missed you every single day.”

Elinor smiles at him.

 

 

A single bell rings out, just once, and as soon as its sound dissipates, the soft rushing of swan wings can be heard. Majestically, the great white swan swoops around the circle. She lands just outside of it. Bernie sees the crown twinkle on top of the swan’s head. It is Serena! She wants to run and hug her, but her limbs won’t cooperate. Jason puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Welcome, Serena,” says Mr. Hanssen. The swan queen bows her neck, and then steps into the circle and walks up to the platform. 

Mr. Hanssen nods to Elinor, and Mr. and Mrs. McKinnie. The swan queen stretches out her wings, Mr. and Mrs. McKinnie walk up and each take a tip of the wing. Then the swan queen stretches her neck all the way backwards. Elinor walks up and lovingly takes the head in her hands. The single bell sounds again, and the swan cries out. With a quick pull Elinor strips off the swan’s head, and Mr. and Mrs. McKinnie strips the wings off. Out of the swan’s skin rises Serena in her corset and chainmail. On the chainmail the hundreds of teardrop shaped moonstones glimmer in the light of the candles. Elinor gathers the swan skin and lays it on the paten in front of Mr.Hanssen.   
Mr. and Mrs. McKinnie each take hold of the chainmail around Serena’s wrists. Elinor walks behind her and takes hold of the corset at the collar. The bell sounds again and with a sharp gasp of Serena, Elinor, and Mr. and Mrs. McKinnie yank the constrictive clothing off Serena. She remains standing in a simple white flowy dress with gold trimming. As her family members gather the clothing up, Serena turns around and hugs them fiercely. They return the hugs with equal fervor. Then all three turn Serena around to face Bernie, squeeze her shoulders once more and step back to the side of the stone platform. Serena has her eyes closed, tears are falling through her closed eyelids. They fall onto the concrete floor and form little dark specks. Then she sighs and looks up at Bernie. She smiles so brightly through her tears, that Bernie’s heart seems to make a freefall. She can’t stand aside any longer, and when Serena opens her arms, she all but runs into them, tears streaming down her face.

“Shh, shh, my Love. We’re here now.”

“I took my bloody time,” says Bernie through her tears, face buried in Serena’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

“But we’re here now. Look at me, Bernie.” Her voice is as lovingly commanding as ever. Bernie looks up. “We’re here now.”

Bernie nods. “I love you.” 

“And I love you,” says Serena. 

Mr. Hanssen coughs discreetly.

“Excuse me, Ms Campbell, Ms Wolfe. Let us begin?”

“Sorry.” Bernie steps back a little, but holds tight to Serena’s hand.

“Ms Campbell,” mr. Hanssen begins, his voice all loud and formal, as if he is reciting a play. “After the death of your father, you balanced on the precipice of life, and you didn’t know if you wanted to belong to the future or to the past. The universe granted you a second chance. It allowed you to step away from the precipice and live a half-life, half-death until you were able to answer that question without hesitation. Your Saviour has brought you here today. Now is the moment of answering, and answer wisely. You may consult your counsel.” 

Serena takes a deep breath, dropping her shoulders and closing her eyes.  
Elinor, and Mr. and Mrs. McKinnie lay their hands on the back and shoulders of Serena for a moment, then silently step back.

Serena opens her eyes and looks into Bernie’s. Then she squeezes her hand.

“Do you need further counsel, Ms. Campbell?” asks Mr. Hanssen.

Serena sighs, and shakes her head. “I want to proceed.”

“Very well. Then I shall ask for your answer. Serena Campbell: do you want to belong to the past or to the future?”

Serena takes a deep breath and answers. “To live fully as a human being, is to live in the moment. The moment is eternal, untouched by past and future, yet both flow forth from it, and towards it. If I have to choose to live in either past or future, I choose **neither**. I choose to live in the moment.”

“Then you choose freedom, Ms Campbell.” Mr. Hanssen holds the lighter to the swan’s skin in the paten. It quickly catches fire. The flames roar up and the skin crackles. Suddenly a voice can be heard amid the crackling. It is an american lady’s voice. “911, what’s your emergency?” Serena’s hands grip Bernie’s tightly.   
Then all flames die down, and there are just ashes left on the paten. 

“Congratulations, Ms. Campbell”, says Mr. Hanssen. “You have broken your spell.” 

 

Serena lets out a shuddering breath. She squeezes Bernie’s hand once more.

Mr. Hanssen addresses Bernie now. “Ms. Wolfe, when you were hit by a roadside IED, you balanced on the precipice of life. You didn’t know if you wanted to belong to the heavens or to the earth. The universe allowed to a half-life, half death to arrive at a conclusive answer to that question. Your Queen has brought you here today. It is time to answer. Please answer wisely. You may confer with your counsel.”

Bernie looks up, puzzled. Then she looks at Dom, who stands on her right. 

“Who, me? I would choose heaven, of course, “ says Dom. “There are no hardships in heaven. You will never experience fear or pain!” 

“But you are a hero, a real one, not just a soldier” says Jason. “You’re alright. The earth will go ‘round.”

“I don’t know, Jason...I too would choose heaven, if I were in your shoes, Bernie. You will know the truth all the time in heaven,” says Ric. “There are no lies, there is no deceit. You will know once and for all who is on your side, and who is not.”

“Are there sides?” asks Bernie.

“That’s a moot point,” says Jac. “The important thing is: you will find peace in heaven. Your sins will have been burnt away in purgatory. You will not longer feel like a monster. If I had the choice...” 

Bernie thinks back to the months of keeping Serena in captivity. Serena knows just how much of a monster she is. Her heart feels heavy.  
Then she feels a hand on her arm.

“Hey, look at me.” She looks up into Serena’s kind eyes. “Look at me. We can draw a veil over all that. We can start anew. I’m alright. You’re alright. The earth will go ‘round.”

“Do you need further counsel, Ms. Wolfe?” asks Hanssen.

“Uh...no, I’m good. I want to proceed.”

“Then please tell me: do you wish to belong to the heavens or to earth?” 

Bernie looks from one to the other. She sees the stern look on the face of Hanssen, the encouragement in Jason’s eyes. She sees the fear in the eyes of Dom, the doubt on the face of Ric, the pride in Jac’s posture. Then she looks at Serena and sees the pure love for her radiating from every fibre of Serena’s being, the love of her beloved deceased flowing through her. She squeezes Serena’s hand. 

She then addresses Hanssen. “I choose to live. To live fully as a human being, is to belong to both realms, equally. To be earthly afraid, but to heavenly do what is right; to earthly doubt, but to heavenly trust and love radically; to earthly value one’s own self , but to heavenly give up what is most precious for the good of the other. I choose to live fully; I choose **both**. I choose to live in the heaven and on earth.”

“Then you have chosen freedom, Ms. Wolfe. Our contracts are now fulfilled.” Mr. Hanssen holds up the papers in front of him. They are the contracts that Bernie signed in his office. She can see her signatures in red ink on them.  
Mr. Hanssen proceeds to tear up the contracts into little pieces. He lets them fall into the beaker on the slab of stone before him. Suddenly a strong gust of wind blows out the candles, and swirls all around them. Mr. Hanssen picks up the beaker and pours the pieces of paper into the wind. They blow and dance all around them. A deep sonic boom echoes through the Holby night sky followed by the roar of exploding metal. Bernie’s hair blows into her eyes. She grabs Serena by both hands.

 

Then, just as sudden as it started, the wind calms down, and Bernie finds herself alone on the roof with Serena.   
They smile to each other. Far away a church chimes four times. They hear the wild flapping of an unsteady little bird. Eddie ‘The Pidgeon’ Edwards flip-flops overhead, circles once, twice, and on its third swoop it drops a little box in between them on the roof. 

Serena picks it up and opens the box. It holds two golden rings, inset with shards of the broken ruby. 

“That’s a little soon, eh?” Serena closes the little box. “We’ll save them. We have a lot of talking to do, a lot of healing to do.”

Bernie nods. She holds out her hand and takes the box. She slides it in the pocket of her scrubs. “So,” she starts. “So..eh...what do we now?

“Live?” Serena smiles and takes Bernie’s hands.

“Live,” confirms Bernie with a smile.

“Here?” asks Serena.

Bernie nods. “Now?” she asks.

Serena nods.

“Together,” they say. And as they embrace, the sun rises on a new day in Holby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And they lived happily here and now, together._
> 
>  
> 
> THE END
> 
>  
> 
> Many thanks, once again, to the organisation of Scrub In, to the wonderful Ktlsyrtis for the artwork, and Alainael for her cheerleading.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Bleeding Swan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15884604) by [ktlsyrtis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktlsyrtis/pseuds/ktlsyrtis)




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